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to
3. 9ovMe (JlUf Mtoib

preface

jJ^His book is the result of beaver studies which
^^ covera period of twenty-seven years. During
these years I have rambled through every State
in the Union and visited Mexico, Canada, and
Alaska. In the course of these rambles notice
was taken of trees, birds, flowers, glaciers, and
bears, and studious attention devoted to the
beaver. No opportunity for beaver study was
missed, and many a long journey was made for
the purpose of investigating the conditions in live
colonies or in making measurements in the ruins
of old ones. These investigations were made dur-
ing every season of the year, and often a week
was spent in one colony. I have seen beaver at
work scores of times, and on a few occasions
dozens at one time.

Beaver have been my neighbors since I was a
boy. At any time during the past twenty-five
years I could go from my cabin on the slope of
Long's Peak, Colorado, to a number of colonies

vu

(:

Qprefoce

within fifteen minutes. Studies were carried on in
these near-by colonies in spring, summer, autumn,
and winter.

One autumn my entire time was spent in male-
ing observations and watching the activities of
beaver in fourteen colonies. Sixty-four days in
succession I visited these colonies, three of them
twice daily. These daily investigations enabled
ine to see the preparations for winter from begin-
ning to end. They also enabled me to understand
details which with infrequent visits I could not
have even discovered. During this autumn I saw
two houses built and a number of old ones repaired
and plastered. I also saw the digging of one
canal, the repairing of a number of old dams, and
the building of two new ones. In three of these
colonies I tallied each day the additional number
of trees cut for harvest. I saw many trees felled,
and noted the manner in which they were moved
by land and floated by water.

The greater number of the papers in this book
were written especially for it. Parts of the others
have been used in my books Wild Life on the
Rockies and The Spell of the Rockies. « The Bea-

viii

Qptefoce

vert Engineering- appeared in the Saturday
Evening Post, and I am indebted to McClurt's
for permission to use "Beaver Pioneers."

Beaver works are of jonomical and educa-
tional value besides adding a charm to the wilds.
The beaver is a persistent practicer of conserva-
tion and should not perish from the hills and
mountains of our land. Altogether the beaver has
8o many interesting ways, is so useful, skillful,
practical, and picturesque that his life and his
deeds deserve a larger place in literature and in
our hearts.

E. A. M.

it

i *

Ccnitnin

Working like a Beaver ,

Our Friend tlie Beaver ,-

The Beaver ftut and Pre^nt .... 37

At Others See Him .,

The Beaver Dam ^,

Harveat Time with Beaveri . . , , 81

TranaporUtion Facilities ^

The Primitive House ,,-

The Beaver's Engineering ,37

The Ruined Colony ,-,

Beaver Pioneers ,--

The Colony in Winter ,pj

The Original Conservationist , . . .an

Bibliographical Note 223

Index 22J

(■

Beaver World Frontispiece

A Young Beaver on the side of a Beaver House 6

A Young Beaver Sunning Himself ... 22

In the Harvest-Field

• • • • , 32
Aspens cut by Beaver.

Beaver Ponds

42

A New Dam ^ -

• . 00

Part of an Old Dam 1040 Feet Long ... 78
The Spruce Tree House and Food-Pile, October 12 92
Lake-Bed Canals at Lily Lake, October, jgii . ,02
Section of a rsofoot Canal at Lily Lake . . 102
Plan of Beaver Colony on Jefferson River, near

Three Forks, Montana . . ,„«

. lOo

An Unplastered and a Plastered House . .,24

The 334-foot Canal

Plan of Moraine Colony, with Dead- Wood Dam 144

The Dead-Wood Dam .

• • . 148

• ••

nil

di

The Moraine House before and after Enlargement i68

House in Lily Lake .180

House, Food-Pile, Pond, and Dam in Winter . 198
Where Beaver formerly lived attd spread Sou . 218

«/ i68

l8o

. 198

218

'^ottiittsmct(gtAm

4

i

1 I

A^NE September day I saw a number of beaver
^^ at work upon a half -finished house. One
p?ft of the house had been carried up about two
feet above the water, and against this were leaned
numerous sticks, which stood upon the top of the
foundation just above water-level. After these
sticks were arranged, they were covered with turf
and mud which the beaver scooped from the bot-
tom of the pond. In bringing this earth covering
up, the beaver invariably came out of the water
at a given point, and over a short slide worn on
the side of the house climbed up to the height
where they were to deposit their load, which was
earned in the fore paws. Then they edged round
and put the mud-ball upon the house. From this
point they descended directly to the water, but
when they emerged with the next handful, they
came out at the bottom of the slide, and again
climbed up it.

The beaver often does a large amount of work

3

i

\i

ill

3n QgfeaDet lOJottb

in a short time. A small dam may be built up in
a few nights, or a number of trees felled, or pos-
sibly a long burrow or tunnel clawed in the earth
during a brief period. In most cases, however,
beaver works of magnitude are monuments of old
days, and have required a long time to construct,
being probably the work of more than one gen-
eration. It is rare for a large dam or canal to be
constructed in one season. A thousand feet of
dam is the accumulated work of years. An aged
beaver may have lived all his life in one locality,
bom in the house in which his parents were bom,
and he might rise upon the thousand-foot dam
which held his pond and say, " My grandparents
half a dozen centuries ago commenced this dam,
and I do not know which one of my ancestors
completed it."

Although the beaver is a tireless and an effect-
ive worker, he does not work unless there is need
to do so. Usually his summer is a rambling vaca-
tion spent away from home. His longest period
of labor is during September and October, when
the harvest is gathered and general preparations
made for the long winter. Baby beavers take part

4

in the harvest-getting, though probably without
accomphshing very much. During most winters
he has weeks of routine in the house and ponds
with nothing urgent to do except sleep and eat.
He works not only tooth and nail, but tooth
and tail. The tail is one of the most conspicuous
organs of the beaver. Volumes have been written
concerning it. It is nearly flat, is black in color,
and is a convenient and much-used appendage.
It serves for a rudder, a stool, a prop, a scull, and
a signal club. It may be used for a trowel, but I
have never seen it so used. It serves one purpose
that apparently has not been discussed in print;
on a few occasions I have seen a beaver cany a
small daub of mud or some sticks clasped between
the tail and the belly. It gives this awkward ani-
mal increased awkwardness and even an uncouth
appearance to see him humped up, with tail
tucked between his legs, in order to clasp some-
thing between it and his belly.

He is accomplished in the use of arms and
hands. With hands he is able to hold sticks and
handle them with great dexterity. Like any claw-
ing animal he uses his hands or fore paws, to dig

5

3^ (gtCiMC Hfott^

holes or tunnels and to excavate burrows at

water-basins. His hind feet are the chief prop«

ling power in swimming, although the tail, whic

may be turned almost on edge and is capable <

diagonal movement, is soraetinies brought int

play as a scull when the beaver is at his swiftes

In the water beaver move about freely and ap

parently with the greatest enjoyment. They an

delightfully swift and agile swimmers, in decidec

contrast with their awkward slowness upon th<

ground. They can swim two hundred yards undei

water without once coming to the surface, and

have the ability to remain under water from five

to ten minutes. On one occasion a beaver re-

mained under water longer than eleven minutes.

and came to the top none the worse, apparently.

for this long period of suspended breathing.

It is in standing erect that the beaver is at his
best In this attitude the awkwardness and the
dull appearance of all-fours are absent, and he
IS a statue of alertness. With feet parallel and in
line, tail at right angles to the body and resting
horizontally on the ground, and hands held against
the breast, he has the happy and childish eager-

6

3W8 and
propel-
h which
pable of
;ht into
(wiftest.
ind ap-
hey are
iecided
on the
s under
ce, and
>m five
i^er re-
inutes,
rently,

&

at his
id the
nd he
ind in
esting
g^ainst
-ager-

1 1

I >

neu of a standing chipmunk, and the alert and
capable attitude of an erect and listening grizzly
bear.

The beaver is larger than most people imagine.
Mafire male specimens are about thirty -eight
inches in length and weigh about thirty -eight
pounds, but occasionally one is found that weighs
seventy or more pounds. Ten mature males which
I measured in the Rocky Mountains showed an
average length of forty inches, with an average
weight of forty-seven pounds. The tails of these
ten averaged ten inches in length, foui ^ a
half inches in width across the centre, and one
inch in thickness. Behind the shoulders the
average circumference was twenty -one inches,
and around the abdomen twenty-eight. Ten ma-
ture females which I measured were only a trifle
smaller.

There are twenty teeth ; in each jaw there are
eight molars and two incisors. The four front
teeth of the beaver are large, orange - colored,
strong, and have a self-sharpening edge of enamel.
The ears are very short and rounded. The sense
of smell appears to be the most highly developed

7

^1

1 I

.it

h OS^Mixr Ithttb

of the beavei'i hok*. Nat to thu. that of he.
l^appear, to be the met infom,tion.L Tl

webbed, and reMiable those of a boom The «,

^tV Tl '■" *"~'»-8 thepan.it,
&om the .km. The fore paw, of the beaver an
h«.dl.ke. and have long. .t„ng daw.. Th« a"

The color of the beaver i, a wdduh brown

"»'onaI specimens are whit., or black. The

)1T " T ? ''""^''■»' •"'"»>• "<» "hen in
«t.on on the land he is awkwa«l. The black
^n which covers his tail appear to be cove^

Tl. '• ^ """ "'"'y *" *is form ^
«PP«anmce, the scale, do not exist The taU
•omewhat resembles the end of an oar.

The all-important tools of thU workman are
h» four onnge-colored f„nt teeth. These are
edge-tools that are adaptable and self-shan^nine
They are set in strong jaws and opened by

8 ^

powerful muscles. Thus equipped, he can easily
cut wood. These teeth grow with surprising
rapidity. If accident befalls them, so that the
upper and the lower fail to bear and wear, they
will grow by each other and in a short time be-
come of an uncanny length. I have found several
dead beaver who had apparently died of starvation-
their teeth overiapped with jaws wide open and
thus prevented their procuring food. For a time
I possessed an overgrown tooth that was crescent-
shaped and a trifle more than six inches long

Pounds considered, the beaver is a powerful
animal, and over a rough trail will drag objects of
twice his own weight or roll a log-section of gigan-
tic size. Up a strong current he will tow an eighty-
or one-hundred-pound sapling without apparent
effort. Three or four have rolled a one-hundred-
and-twenty-pound boulder into place in the dam
Commonly he does things at opportune times
and m the easiest way. His energy is not wasted
in building a dam where one is not needed nor
m constructive work in times of high water. He
accepts deep water as a matter of fact and con-
structs dams to make shallow places deep.

9

■' t

i ll

Beaver food is largely inner bark of deciduous
or broad. leaved trees. Foremost among these
trees wh,ch they use for food is the as^„. al-
though the Cottonwood and wUIow are eaten

maple, box^elder, and a number of other tree,
.s also used. E«ept in times of dire emergency
the beaver w.ll not eat the bark of the pine
spruce or fir tree. It is fortunate that the trees'
which the beaver fell and use for food or build-
"»g purposes are water-loving trees, which not
only sprout from both stump and root, but grow
with exceeding rapidity. Among other lesser
foods used are berries, mushrooms, sedge, erass

rwln:eTr^"''^°^='""'"^"^P^"'
i J' T- ?^ ^'^' '"^ ''"'' ^"^ »<""*«">es
«sed.andmth.s season the rootstocks of the pond-
% and the roots of the willow, alder, birch and

oAerwater-loving trees that may be gotfrom the

d^T^r ^'r""!; ^-™--"* vegetarians; they
do not eat iish or flesh. '

Apparently beaver prefer to cut trees that are
less than s.x mches in diameter, and where slen.
der poles abound it is rare for anything to be cut

lO

of more thr 'i four inches. But it is not uncom-
mon to see trees fei'ed that are from twelve to
fifteen i rcliCS in di? neter. In my possession are
three beaver -cut stumps each of which has a
greater diameter than eighteen inches, the largest
being thirty-four inches. The largest beaver-cut
stump that I have ever measured was on the
Jefferson River in I»iontana, near the mouth of
Pipestone Creek. This was three feet six inches
in diameter.

The beaver sits upright with fore paws against
the tree, or clasping it; half squatting on his hind
legs, with tail either extending behind as a prop
or folded beneath him as a seat, he tilts his head
from side to side and makes deep bites into the
tree about sixteen inches above the ground. In
the overwhelming majority of beaver-cut trees
that I have seen, most of the cutting was done
from one side, —from one seat as it were. Though
iht notch taken out was rudely done, it was after
the fashion of the axe -man. The beaver bites
above and below, then, driving his teeth behind
the piece thus cut off, will wedge, pry, or pull out
the chip. Ofttimes in doing this he appears to

II

4

(

Jn (0eaDet T&otfb

use his jaw as a lever. With the aspen, or with
other trees equally soft, about one hour is re-
quired to gnaw down a four-inch sapling. With
one bite he will snip off a limb from half to three
quarters of an inch in diameter.

After a tree is felled on land, the limbs are cut
off and the trunk is gnawed into sections. The
length of these sections appears to depend upon
the size of the tree-trunk and also the distance
to the water, the number of beaver to assist in
its transportation, and the character of the trail.
Commonly a six- or eight-inch tree is cut into
lengths of about four to six feet. If the tree falls
into the water of the pond or the canal, it is, if the
limbs are not too long, transported butt foremost
to the desired spot in its uncut, untrimmed en-
tirety. Ofttimes with a large tree the trunk is left
and only the limbs taken.

The green wood which the beaver uses for his
winter's food -supply is stored on the bottom of
the pond. How does he sink it to the bottom?
There is an old and oft-repeated tale which says
that the beaver sucks the air from the green wood
so as to sink it promptly. Another tale has it that

12

the beaver dives to the bottom carrying with him
a green stick which he thrusts into the mud and
it is thus anchored. Apparently the method is a
simple one. The green wood stored is almost as
heavy as water, and once in the pond it becomes
water-logged and sinks in a short time; however,
the first pieces stored are commonly large, heavy
chunks, which are forced to the bottom by piling
others on top of them. Frequently the first few
pieces of the food-pile consist of entire trees, limbs
and all. These usually are placed in a rude circle
with butts inward and tops outward. This forms
an entangling foundation which holds in place the
smaller stuflf piled thereon.

Most willows by beaver colonies are small and
comparatively light. These do not sink readily,
are not easily managed, and are rarely used in
the bottom of the pile. Commonly, when these
light cuttings are gathered into the food-pile, they
are laid on top, where numerous up -thrusting
limbs entangle and hold them. The foundation
and larger portion of the food-pile are formed of
heavy pieces of aspen, alder, or some other stream-
side tree, which cannot be moved out of place by

13

3n (j§ta}>tt T&orfe

an ordinary wind or water - current and which
quickly sink to the bottom.

Among enemies of this fur-clad fellow are the
wolverine, the otter, the lion, the lynx, the coyote,
the wolf, and the bear. Hawks and owls occasion-
ally capture a young beaver. Beaver spend much
time dressing their fur and bathing, as they are
harassed by lice and other parasites. At rare in-
tervals they are afflicted with disease. They live
from twelve to fifteen years and sometimes longer.
Man IS the worst enemy of the beaver.

A thousand trappers unite to tell the same
pitiable tale of a trapped beaver's last moments.
If the animal has not succeeded in drowning him-
self ortearingoflf afoot and escaping, the trapper
smashes the beaver's head with his hatchet. The
beaver, instead of trying to rend the man with
sharp cutting teeth, raises himself and with up-
raised hand tries to ward off the death-blow. In-
stead of one blow, a young trapper frequently has
to give twoor three, but the beaver receives them
without a struggle or a sound, and dies while
vainly trying to shield his head with both hands
Justly renowned for his industry, the beaver

M

l^otfimg Hit a (gtay>tv

is a master of the fine art of rest. He has many
a vacation and conserves his energies. He keeps
his fur clean and his house in a sanitary condi-
tion. Ever in good condition, he is ready at all
times for hard work and is capable of efficient
work over long periods. He is ready for emergen-
cies.

As animal life goes, that of t' « beaver stands
among the best. His life is full o. industry and
is rich in repose. He is home-loving and avoids
fighting. His lot is cast in poetic places.

The beaver has a rich birthright, though born
in awindowless hut of mud. Close to the prime-
val place of his birth the wild folk of both woods
and water meet and often mingle. Around are the
ever^hanging and never-ending scenes and si-
lences of the water or the shore. Beaver grow up
with the many-sided wild, playing amid the bril-
liant flowers and great boulders, in the piles of
driftwood and among the fallen logs on the for-
est's mysterious edge. They learn to swim and
slide, to dive quickly and deeply from sight, to
sleep, and to rest moveless in the sunshine; ever
listening to the strong, harmonious stir of wind

^n

in (JSM^tt DDottb

and water, living with the stars in the sky and the
stars in the pond ; beginning serious life when
brilliant clouds of color enrich autumn's hills;
helping to harvest the trees that wear the robes
of gold, while the birds go by for the southland
in the reflective autumn days. If Mother Nature
should ever call me to live upon another planet,
I could wish that I might be born a beaver, to
inhabit a house in the water.

I ;

dthe
when
hills;
robes
iland
ature
anet,
er, to

©ttt ;^nenb il^t (j§tay>tt

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II '<

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Our 5rtettb t^ (geam

ANNE bright autumn afternoon I peered down
V/ into a little meadow by a beaver pond.
This meadow was grass-covered and free from
willows. In it seven or eight beaver were at work
along a new canal. Each kept his place and ap-
peared to have a section in which he did his dig-
ging. For more than half an hour I watched
them clawing out the earth and grass-roots and
lifting it out in double handfuls and piling it in
an orderly line along the canal -bank. While I
was watching a worker at one end of this line
two others clinched in a fight. The fighters made
no sound except a subdued guttural mumbling
as they rolled about in a struggle. The other
workers, to my astonishment, paid not the slightest
attention to this fight, but each attended to his
own affairs. After two or three minutes the bel-
ligerents broke away ; one squatted down breath-
mg heavily, while the other, with bloody tail
dragged himself off and plunged into the pond!

19

\n.

3n oBfeaDet "Wottb

This was the first beaver fight that I had ever
seen.

Beaver may well be called the silent workers.
No matter how numerous, or crowded, or busy
they are, their work goes on without a word and
apparently without a sign. Although I have seen
them at work scores of times, in the twilight and
in the daylight, singly, in pairs, and by the doz-
ens, domg the many kinds of work which beaver
perform, yet this work has always gone quietly
and without any visible evidences of manage-
mtnt Each one is capable of acting independ-
ently. Since the quality of his work improves as
the beaver increases his experience, it appears
natural and probable that each colony of beaver
has a leader who plans and directs the work. I
am familiar with a number of instances which
strongly indicate leadership. In times of emerg-
ency, when an entire colony is forced to emigrate
a beaver - and usually an aged one ^ takes the
lead, and wherever I,e goes the others willinelv
follow. ^ ^

Whatever may have been the custom of beaver
in the past, at present large numbers sometimes

20

w

Out ftimh tit Qgfeatoet

cooperate in accomplishing community work. It
used to be believed, and possibly it was true, that
only the members of a family, or the beaver of
one house, united in doing the general work of
the colony. It was a common belief that seven
beaver inhabited a house ; perhaps eight was the
number of the Rocky Mountain region. At the
present time the number in a house is from one
to thirty.

Beaver have been driven from most of the
streams and lake-shores, and now maintain them-
selves with difficulty in the places which they
inhabit. In surviving they probably have had to
sacrifice a few old customs and to adopt some
new ones, and it is likely that these changes
sometimes call for larger houses so as to care for
the increased number of beaver which conditions
now compel to live in one locality. A number of
instances have come under my notice where bea-
ver were driven from their colony either by fire
or by the aggressiveness of trappers ; these moved
on to other scenes, where they cast their lot with
the beaver of another colony, and apparently
were received with every welcome. Immediately

21

d!

Ill

in'
' " si

I f

I!

2n (80»tt lODottb

after the arrival of the immigrants, enlargements
were at once commenced, apparently to accom-
modate the new-comers permanently.

One autumn, while following the Lewis and
Clark trail with a pack horse in western Mon-
tana, I made camp one evening witw a trapper
who gave me a young beaver. He was about one
month old, and ate twigs and bark as naturally
as though he had long eaten them. I named him
" Diver." and in a short time he was as chummy
as a young puppy. Of an evening he played about
the canip and often swam in the near-by water.
At times he played at dam -building, and fre-
quently displayed his accomplishment of felling
wonderful trees that were about the size of a
lead pencil. He never failed to come promptly
when I whistled for him. At night he crouched
near my camp, usually packing himself under the
edge of the canvas on which I spread my bed-
ding. Atop the pack on the horse's back he trav-
eled,—a ride which he evidently enjoyed. He
was never in a hurry to be taken oflF, and at mov-
ing time he wa , always waiting eageriy to be
lifted on. As soon as he noticed me arranging

22

J

-1

J

z

z
z

3

1

Out jfrimb tl^t Q@fea))et

the pack, he came close, and before I was quite
ready for him, he rose up, extending his hands in
rapid succession beggingly, and with a whining
sort of muttering pleaded to be lifted at once to
his seat on the pack.

He had a bad fright one evening. About one
hour before sundown we had encamped as usual
alongside a stream. He entered the water and
after swimming about for a time, taking a dozen
or so meny dives, he crossed to the opposite
side. In plain view, only fifty feet away, I watched
him as he busily dug out roots of the Oregon
grape and then stopped leisurely to eat them.
While he was thus engaged, a coyote made a dash
for him from behind a boulder. Diver dodged,
and the coyote missed. Giving a wail like a
frightened child, my youngster rolled into the
stream and dived. Presently he scrambled out
of the water near me and made haste to crawl
under my coat-tail behind the log on which I sat.

The nearest beaver pond was a quarter of a
mile upstream, yet less than five minutes had
elapsed from the time of Diver's cry when two
beaver appeared, swimming low and cautiously

23

3n QgfeaDetr T&ottb

in the stream before me. A minute later another
came in sight from downstream. All circled
about, swimming cautiously with heads held low
in the water. One scented the place where the
coyote had attacked Diver, and waddled out and
made a sniffing examination. Another came
ashore at the spot where Diver came out to me.
Apparently his eyes told him I was a part of the
log, but his nose proclaimed danger. After three
or four hesitating and ineflfectual attempts to re-
treat, he plucked up courage and rose to full
height on hind legs and tail to stare eagerly at
me. With head well up and fore paws drooping,
he held the gaze for several seconds and then
gave a low whistle.

At this, Diver came forth from behind my
coat to see what was going on. The old one
started forward to meet him, but on having a
good look at me whirled and made a jumping
dive into the water, whacking the surface with
his tail as he disappeared. Instantly there fol-
lowed two or more splashes and a number of
tail-whacks upon the water, as though a beaver
rescue party were beating a retreat.

24

Our JVfenb il^t QBfea))er

At the end of my outing Diver became the
pet of two pioneer children on the bank of the
Snake River. He followed the children about
and romped with them. At three years of age he
was shot by a visiting hunter.

My experience with Diver and other beaver
pets leads me to believe that beaver are easily
domesticated. One morning in northern Idaho,
the family with whom I had spent t:.e night took
me out to see a beaver colony that was within a
stone's throw of their fireplace. Three beaver
came out >{ the water within ten feet of us to eat
scraps of bread which the children threw on the
grass for them.

One day I placed myself between three young
beaver, who were eating on land, and the river
out of which they came. They were on one of
the rocky borders of the Colorado River in the
depths of the upper Grand Caiion. They at-
tempted to get by me, but their efforts were not
o the " do or die " nature. Presently their mother
came to the rescue and attempted to attract my
attention by floating in the water near me in
a terribly crippled condition. I had seen many

25

birds and a few beaver try that clever ruse; so I
allowed it to go on. hoping to see another act
Another followed.

In it an old male beaver appeared. He swam
easily downstream until within a few yards of
me and then dived, apparently frightened. But
presently he reappeared near by and dived again.
While I was watching him, the youngsters edged
a few yards nearer the river. To stop them and
prolong the exhibition, I advanced close to them
as though to grab them. At this the mother
beaver struggled out of the water and set up a
tumbhng and rolling so close to me that I thought
to catch her for examination. She dodged right
and left and reached the water. While this was
going on, the youngsters escaped into the river
Mother beaver instantly recovered, and as she
dived gave the water a scornful whack with her
tail.

The beaver is not often heard. He works in
silence. When he pauses from his work, he sits
meditatively, like a philosopher. At times, how-
ever, when, in traveling, beaver are separated from
one another, they give a strange shrill whistle or

26

caJl. Occasionally this whistle appears to be a
ca^l of alarm, suspicion, or warning. Sometimes
When alarmed, a young beaver gives a shrill and
fnghtened cry not unlike that of a lost human
child. On a few occasions I have heard, while
hstenmg near a beaver house in the early sum-
mer something of a subdued concert going on
inside, a purring, rhythmic melody. They have
a kind of love ditty also. This is a rhythmic
murmur and sigh, very appealing, and it seems
strangely elemental as it floats across the beaver
pond m the twilight.

It is pro^ >Me that beaver mate for life. All
that -s kno concerning their ways indicates
that they are good parents. The young are usu-
ally bom dunng the month of A^. The number
vanes from one to eight; probably four is the
nuniber most common. A short time before the
birth of the youngsters, the mother invites the
father to leave, or compels him to do so. -or he
may go voluntarily. _ and she has possession of
the house or burrow, probably alone, at the time
the younpters are bom. Their eyes are open
from the begmning. and in less than two weeks

27

} 4

ii

k':

3n (0AUMV 1t7or(b

ttey app^ in the water «xompanied by the

^ndt' '■ ^: • '"'•"vestigated beavercoCL
endea™„„g ,o determine the number of young-

»^ at a b.rth Many times the« ,e« four ^
these fnrry. senous little fellows near the house

on a ^gth.t was thrust up though the w^te"

sunned them«Ives on the top of the rude Sme.
One May. m examining beaver colonies, I saw
three sets rf youngsters in the Moraine Colony
They numbered th«e. and two. an<J five. One

mothermanothercolonyproudly exhibited eight.

wh, e still another, who had been harassed aU

winter by ,«ppe„ and who lived in a burrow in

the bank, could display but one.

It is not uncommon for young o^jhan beavers
to be cared for and adopted by anTther mothe"
beaver. I have notes of three mothers who. with
cWdren of their own, at once took cha.^ of
OThans left by the death of a neighbor. One
June a mother beaver was killed near my camp.
Her children escaped. The following evening a
newmother,withfour children of herown adopfed
them and moved from her own home, a quarter

28

of a mile distant, to the home of her dead neigh-
bor and there brought all the youngsters up.

Beaver have great fun while growing up. Posted
on the edge of the house, they nose and push each
other about, ofttimes tumbling one another into
the water. In the water they send a thousand
merry ripples to the shore, as they race, wrestle,
and dive in the pond. They play on the house,'
in the pond, and in the sunshine and shadows of
the trees along the shore.

Beaver are mature the third summer of their
lives, and at this time they commonly leave the
parental home, pair, and begin life for themselves.
There are stories to the effect that the parents of
the youthful home-builders accompany the child-
ren to new scenes, help them select a building-
site, and assist in the construction of the new
house and dam. After this the parents return
home. This probably is occasionally true. Any-
way I once saw this program fairly well carried
out, and at another time in a limited manner.

The beaver is practical, peaceful, and industri-
ous. He builds a permanent house and keeps it
clean and in repair. Beside it hestores food-supply

29

'■' 1

I

3n (SeaMr Dif^tb

for the long winter. He takes thought for the
morrow. These and other commendable charac-
tenstics give him a place of honor among the
hordesof homeless, hand-to-mouth folk of the wild.
During the winter he has but little to do except
batheard eat his two or three meals a day from the
food he has stored in the autumn. Towards spring,
when his wild neighbors are lean, hungry, and
cold, he is fat and comfortable. In the spring he
emerges from the house, but then his only work
is occasionally to cut a twig for food. In the
summer he plays tourist. He visits other colonies,
and wanders up and down streams, going miles
from home. In the late summer or early autumn
he returns, makes repairs, and harvests food for
winter.

The beaver is a valuable conservationist, but
there are localities in which he cannot be toier-
ated. Although dead wood is rarely cut by the
beaver, many a homesteader has been disturbed
by his cutting oflF and carrying away green fence '
posts. Recently beaver have returned to a few
localities and got themselves into bad repute by
felling fruit trees. Occasionally, too, in the West,

30

Our iirtotb i^t (gtay>tt

they have lost caste by persistently damming an
imgation-ditch and diverting the water, despite
the fact that a court has given both the title and
the nght to this water to some one else a mile
or so down the ditch.

In all logging operations, beaver never fail—
where there is opportunity — to cut trees up-
stream and float them down with the current.
Tree-cutting is an interesting phase of beaver
life. A beaver will go waddling dully from the
water to a tree he is about to cut down. All will
look about for enemies; one may be wise enough
— but the majority will not do so — to look up-
ward to see if the tree about to be felled is en-
tangled at the top. All appear to choose a com-
fortable place on which to squat or sit while
cutting.

Commonly when the tree begins to creak and
settle, the beaver who has done the cutting thuds
the ground a few times with his tail, and then
scampers away, usually going into the water.
Sometimes the near-by workers give the thudding
signal in advance of the one who is doing the
cutting. Nowand then no warning signal is given,

31

hi^

f ill

3n (gtar^tt DDoxtb

and the logging beaver occasionally fells his tree
upon other workers with a fatal result As with
axe-men, the beaver doing the cutting is on rare
occasions caught and killed by the tree which
he fells.

Rarely does the beaver give any thought to
the direction in which the tree will fall. In a few
instances, however, I have seen what appeared
to be an effort on the part of the beaver to fell
a tree in a given direction. From an uncomfort-
able place he cut the lowest notch on the side on
which he probably wanted the tree to fall. On
one of these occasions, the aspen tree selected
stood in an almost complete circle of pines. The
beaver took pains to cut the first and lowest notch
in this tree directly opposite the opening in the
pines. I have seen a number of instances of this
kind. And he will sometimes leave the windward
side of a grove on a windy day, and cut on the
leeward, so that the felled trees are not entangled
in falling.

Rarely does more than one beaver work at the
same time at a tree. In some instances, however,
if the tree be large, two or even more beaver will

32

1 ill

work at once. But after the tree hat been felled,
ofttimea three or four beaver will unite to roll a
large section to the water. In doing this, some
may stand with paws against it and push, and
others may put their sides or hips against it On
land, as in the water, small limbcovercd trees are
dr^ed butt foremost so as to meet the least
resistance. Sometimes the beaver drags walking
backwards; at other times he is alongside the
tree carrying and dragging it forward.

Early explorers say that beaver do most of their
work at night In thU they are practically unani-
mous. However, in Long's Journal, written in
i8ao, beaver were reported at work in broad day-
hght A few other early writers have also men-
tioned this daylight work. They probably work
in darkness because that is the safest time for
them to be out During dozens of my visits to
secluded localities, -localities which had not
been visited by man, and certainly not by trappers,
— I found beaver freely at work in broad day'
light I am inclined to think that day work was
common duringprimeval times; and that, although
the beaver now do and long have done most of

33

i

'\ -n

h

their work at night, in localities where they are
not in danger from man, they work freely durine
daytime. *

Both the Indians and the trappera have a story
that old beaver who will not work are driven from
the colony and become morose outcasts, slowly
hvmg away the days by themselves in a burrow
I have no evidence to verify this statement, and
am mclined to think that solitary beaver occasion-
ally found in abandoned colony-sites and else-
where are simply unfortunates, perhaps weighed
down with age, unable to travel far, with teeth
worn, the mate dead, without ambition to try, or
without strength to emigrate. It is more likely
that these aged ones voluntarily and sadly with-
draw from their cheerful and industrious fellows,
to spend their closing days alone. Although, too'
there were among Indians and trappers stories'
of beaver slaves, I am without material forastorv
of this kind. ^

The beaver is peaceful. Although the males
occasionally fight among themselves, the beaver
avoids fighting, and plans his life so as to es-
cape without it Now and then in the water

34

Out 5rimb tl^t QgfeaDet

one closes with an otter in a desperate struggle,
and when cornered on land one will sometimes'
turn upon a preying foe with such ferocity and
skill that his assailant is glad to retreat. On two
occasions I have known a beaver to kill a bobcat.
Beaver are not equally alert. In many cases
this difference may be due to a difference in age
or experience. Beaver have been caught with
scars which show that they have been trapped
before, a f«w even having lost two feet in escap-
mg from traps. On the other hand, skillful trap-
pers have found themselves after repeated trials,
unable to catch a single beaver from a populous
colony. Sometimes in colonies of this kind, the
beaver even audaciously turned the traps upside
down or contemptuously covered them with mud.
Nor is the work of all beaver alike. The ditches
which one beaver digs, the house one builds, or
the dam one makes, may be executed with much
greater speed and with more skill than those of
a neighboring beaver. Many houses are crude
and unshapely masses, many dams haphazard in
appearance, while a few canals are crooked and
uneven. But the majority do good work, and are

35

1

m

I

"< ; "!

m

h (S^M))etr IDotfb

quick to take advantage of opportunity, quick to
adjust themselves to new conditions, or to use the
best means that is available. Beaver probably
have made numbers of changes in their manners,
habits, and customs, and those changes undoubt-
ediy have enabled them to survive relentless pur-
suit, and to leave descendants upon the earth.

The industry of the beaver is proverbial, and it
is to the credit of any person to have the dis-
tinction of working -like a beaver." Most people
have the idea that the beaver is always at work;
not that he necessarily accomplishes much at this
work, but that he is always doing something. The
fact remains that under normal conditions he
works less than half the time, and it is not un-
common for him to spend a large share of each
year in what might be called play. He is physic-
ally capable of intense and prolonged application,
and, being an intelligent worker, even though he
works less than half the time he accomplishes
large results.

Zlit Qg?ea))et ^agi on^ ^ttetni

riji LL Indian tribes in North America appear
^y to have had one or more legends concern-
ing the beaver. Most of these legends credit him
with being a worthy and industrious fellow, and
the Cherokees are said to trace their origin to a
sacred and practical beaver. Many of the tribes
had a legend which told that long, long ago the
Great Waters surged around a shoreless world.
These v/aters were peopled with beaver, beaver
of a gigantic size. These, along with the Great
Spirit, dived and brought up quantities of mud
and shaped this into the hills and dales, the moun*
tains where the cataracts plunged and sang, and all
the caves and canons. The scattered boulders and
broken crags upon the earth were the missiles
thrown by evil spirits, who in the beginning of
things endeavored to hinder and prevent the con-
structive work of creation.

39

i

■ , i

*

I

|i

if

Jn (gttOitt T^orfo

Eoropeandm America. RemnanU of the dugout
»d the teeth of beaver, together with rude sLe
.n.^en,e„b of primitive man. have been found
m England Near Albany. New York, gnawed
beaverwood «,d the remains of a mastodon we«
dug up from about forty feet below the surface

m sediment and river o<»e. Fos«l beaver were of
enormous size.

the^^l"'? ''°*" *° ^0"P»""ively modem times.

been d.st„buted over almost all Asia. Europe
and Nor* America. There was no marked diff«:
ence ,„ the individuals that inhabited these thr^

Enro^. but m July, .900. I found a piece of
WCKKI floating in the Seine that had been ^„t '
gnawed by a beaver. At this time I was assured
Aat not even a tame beaver could be found in
Europe. It ,s still fouad in parts of Siberia and
Cenh,, A„a. That form which inhabits Sol
Amenca „ very unlike those in the Northern
Hemisphere, and may be called a link betwee"
the muskrat and the beaver.

40

Reference is made to the beaver in ancient
Egyptian hieroglyphics, and Herodotus makes
repeated mention of it. Pliny also gives a brief
account of this animal. In Germany, in 1103,
the right of hunting beaver was conferred along
with other special hunting privileges; and a bull
of Pope Lucius III, in 1 18a, gave to a monastery
all the beaver found within the bounds of its
property. A royal edict issued at Berlin in March,
1725, insisted upon the protection of bea/er.

Before the white man came, beaver — Casior
canadensis — were widely distributed over North
America, perhaps more widely than any other
animal. The beaver population was large, and
probably was densest to the southwest of Hudson
Bay and around the headwaters of the Missouri
and Columbia rivers. Their scantiest population
areas in the United States appear to have been
southern Florida and the lower Mississippi Val-
ley. This scantiness is attributed by early ex-
plorers to the aggressiveness of the alligators.
All the southern half of Mexico appears to have
been without a beaver population; but elsewhere
over North America, wherever there were decid-

41

"f

m

I!'

%\

3n (gtar^tt ll?orfo

uous trees and water, and in a few treeless places
where there were only water and grass, the beaver
were found. Along the thousands of smaller
streams throughout North America there was
colony after colony, dam after dam, in close suc-
cession, as many as three hundred beaver ponds
to the mile. Lewis and Clark mention the fact
that near the Three Forks, Montana, the streams
stretched away in a succession of beaver ponds
as far as the eye could reach. The statements
made by the early explorers, settlers, and trappers,
together with myown observations,— which com.
menced in 1885, and which have extended pretty
well over the country from northern Mexico into
Alaska,— lead to the conclusion that the beaver
population of North America at the beginning of
the seventeenth century was upwards of one hun-
dred million. The area occupied was approxi-
mately six million square m?les, and probably two
hundred beaver population per square mile would
be a conservative number for the general average.
In the United States there are a number of
counties .i-d more than one hundred streams and
lakes named for the beaver ; upwards of fifty post-

■^

! i

It

it

t9t (gtar^tt ^oBi 4iib {pttntnt

officci are plain Beaver, Beaver Pond, Beaver
Meadow, or some other combination that pro-
claims the former prevalence of this widely dis-
tributed builder. The beaver is the national
emblematic animal of Canada, and there, too,
numerous p'^t-offices, lakes, and streams are
named for the beaver.

Beaver skins lured the hunter and tiapper over
all American wilds. These skins were one of the
earliest mediums of exchange among the settlers
of North America. For two hundred years they
were one of the most important exports, and for
a longer time they were also the chief commodity
of trade on the frontier. A beaver skin was not
only the standard by which other skins were
measured in value, but also the standard of value
by which guns, sugar, cattle, hatchets, and cloth-
ing were measured. Though freely used by the
early settlers for clothing, they were especially
valuable as raw material for the manufacture of
hats, and for this purpose were largely exported.
From this animal were prepared many reme-
dies which in former times were believed to have
high medicinal value. Castoreum was the most

43

1

■:1

popular of theie. and from it wai compounded the
great cureall. Theakin of the beaver was thought
to be an excellent preventive of colic and con-
aumption; the fat of the beaver efficient in apo-
plcxy and epilepsy, to stop spasms, and for various
afflictions of the nerves. Powdered beaver teeth
were often given in soup for the prevention of
many diseases. The castoreum of the beaver was
considered a most efficient remedy for earache
deafness, headache, and gout, for the restoring of
the memory and the cure of insanity. Next in
importance to its skin, the beaver was valued for
the castoreum it yielded.

The old hunters, trappers, and first settlers fore-
cast with confidence the weather from the actions
of the beaver. This animal was credited with
bemg weather-wise to a high degree. From his
actions the nature of the oncoming winter was
predicted, and plans to meet it were made accord-
mgly. Faith in the beaver's actions and activities
as a basis for weather-forecasting was almost abso-
lute. If the beaver began work early, the winter
was to begin early. If the beaver laid up a laroe
harvest, covered the house deeply with mud, and

44

tit (gtarut ^cmi rnib fpttBtiU

railed the water-level of the pond, the winter was,
of course, to be a long and severe one.

Extensive autumn rambles in the mountains
with especial attention to heaver '^ustoms com-
pels me to conclude that as a ba^ls for weather
prediction beaverdoR' is not relid.le. In tj . coune
of one autumn month in .he mcuutains [ Colo-
rado more than or» hund.ri co«cnies were ob-
served. In many colonies wvk /or the winter
commenced early. In others, only a f ow miles dis-
tant, preparations for the winter did not begin
until late. In some, extensive preparations were
made for the winter. In a few the harvest laid
up was exceedingly small. Thus, in one month of
the same year I saw some beaver colonies pre-
paring for a long winter and others for a short
one, many preparing for a hard winter and other*
almost unprepared for winter. From these varied
and conflicting prognostications, how was one
accurately to forecast the coming winter? The
old prophets in one colony frequently disagreed
with aged prophets who were similarly situ-
ated, but in a neighboring colony. At one place
thirty or more beaver gathered an enormous

45

.1

quantity of food, sufficient, in fact, to have sup.
phed twice that number for the longest and most
severe winter. The winter which followed was as
mild a one as had passed over the Rocky Moun-
tains in fifty years. Not one tenth of the big
food-pile was eaten.

I have not detected anything that indicates that
the beaver ever plan for an especially hard win-
ter. Goodly preparations are annually made for
winter. Apparently the extent of the preparation
m any colony is dependent almost entirely upon
the number of beaver that are to winter in that
colony. Winter preparations consist of gathering
the food-harvest, repairing and sometimes raising
the dam, and commonly covering the house with
a layer of mud. Beaver display forethought, in-
telligence, and even wisdom, but being weather-
wise is not one of their successful specialties
Local beaver now and then show unusual activity
and unusually large supplies are gathered and
stored for the winter. This kind of work appears
to be local, not general. The cases in which un-
usually large preparations were made for the
winter could have been traced to an increased

46

1^

population of the colony that showed these ac-
tivities. On the other hand, coHnies with less
preparations one year than on the preceding one
probably had suflFered a decrease of population.
Increase of population in a beaver colony may be
accounted for through the growing up of young-
sters, or by the arrival of immigrants, or both;
where the temporary inactivity of trappers in one
locality might allow the beaver colony in that
region to increase in numbers; or where the
beaver population of that colony might be in-
creased by the arrival of beaver driven from their
homes by aggressive hunters and trappers in
adjoining localities. At any rate, in the beaver
world, some colonies each year commence work
earlier than do others, and some colonies make
extensive preparations for the winter, while others
make but little preparation. This preparation ap-
pears to be determined chiefly by the number of
colonists and the needs of the colony.

The beaver hastened, if it did not bring, the
settlement of the country. Hunters and trappers
blazed the trails, described the natural resources,
and lured the permanent settlers to possess the

47

I:

' u

I

ill .:

3n Qg^ed)}ar "mottb

land and build homes among the ruins left by
the beaver. Early in the fur industry companies
were formed, the Hudson's Bay Company be-
coming the most influential and best known. Its
charter was granted by Charies II of England on
the 3d day of May. 1669. This company finally
developed into one of the greatest commercial
enterprises that America h» ever known. The
skin of the beaver furnished sore than half its
revenue. There are many features in the history
<rf this company that have never been surpassed
IB mf land. For more than two hundred years it
held al«9lute sway over a country larger than
Europe, an4 lor the first one hundred and fifty
years of its t%i9*^nct it #»• the government of the
territory where k ruled, and thus determined the
social and other ftandards of life within that ter-
ritory. One of the ei^y officials of this company
declared thM tfiey were on the ground ahead
of the miitionaries, and said that the initials
" H. B. C." on the banner of the company might
well be interpreted as " Here before Christ."

Kingsford's History of Canada says that in the
eighteenth cen>ury, Canada exported a moderate

48

quantity of timber, wheat, the herb called gin-
seng, and a few other commodities, but from first
to last she lived chiefly on beaver skins. Horace
T. Martin, formerly Secretary of Agriculture for
Canada, calls the beaver's part in Canadian de-
velopment "a subject which has from the in-
ception of civilization been associated with the
industrial and commercial development, and in-
directly with the social life, the romance, and to
a considerable extent with the wars of Canada."
The American Fur Company and the North-
western Fur Company wer*; two large fur-gather-
ing enterprises whose trappers ranged afar and
who left their mark in the history and the devel-
opment of the Northwest. The colossal Astor
fortune really had its beginning in the wealth
which John Jacob Astor amassed chiefly through
the gathering and the sale of beaver skins.
Beaver skins are now economically unimportant
in commerce, but their value has already led to
the establishment of a few beaver farms.

To-day beaver are apparently extinct over the
greater portion of the area which they formerly
occupied, and are scarce over the remaining in-

49

' \

m
M

It

3n (gtCiMt lOOottb

habited area. Scattered colonies are found in the
Rocky Mountains and in the mountains of the
Pacific Coast, and there are localities in Canada
where they are still fairly abundant. In many
places in the Grand Canon of the Colorado they
are common. A few are found in Michigan and
Maine. Some years ago a few brooks in the
Adirondacks were successfully colonized with
these useful animals. They have reappeared in
Pennsylvania, and there probably are straggling
beaver all over the United States which, if pro-
tected would increase.

There is a growing sentiment in favor of allow-
ing the beaver to multiply. In 1877 Missouri
passed a law protecting these aninuOs; so did
Maine in 1885 and Colorado in ift^ Other
States to the total number of twenty4our have
also legislated for their protection. The Cana-
dian government has also passed protective laws.
A noticeable increase has already occurred in a
few localities. Beaver multiply rapidly under pro-
tection, as is shown in the National Parks of
both Canada and the United States.

^ Ot^M ^tt l^im

I Mi

:3 Jl

m^

.o^OR three hundred years the beaver has been
J a popular subject for discussion. Fabulous
accounts have been given concerning his works,
and that which he has done has been exag-
gerated beyond recognition. Many of the de-
scriptions of him are grotesque, and many ac-
counts of his walks are uncanny. His tail has
been made to do the work of a pile-driver, and
some of the old accounts credit him with driv-
ing stakes into the ground that were as laige as
a man's thigh and five or six feet long. Stories
have been told that his tail was used as a trowel
in plastering the house and the dam. A few
writers have stated that he lived in a three-story
lodge. More than a century ago Audubon called
attention to the enormous mass of fabrications
that had been written concerning this animal,
and in 1771 Samuel Hearne of the Hudson's
Bay Company denounced a beaver nature-faker
in the following terms: "The compiler of the

53

1

3ti (gtay^tt ll?otfb

Wonden of Nature and Art seems to have not
only coUected all the fictions into which other
writers on the subject have run, but has so greatly
improved on them that little remains to be added
to his account of the beaver beside a vocabulary
of their language, a code of their laws, and a
sketch of their religion, to make it the most
complete natural history of that animal."

One might read almost the entire mass of
printed matter concerning the beaver without
obtaining correct information about his manners
and customs or an accurate description of his
works and without getting at the real character
of this animal. The actual life and character of
the beaver, however, the work which he does, the
unusual things which he has accomplished, are
really more interesting and place the beaver on
a higher plane than do all the fictitious tales and
acaggerated accounts written concerning him.

Mr. Lewis H. Morgan in his " American Beaver
and his Works " says : " No other animal has at-
tracted a larger share of attention or acquired by
his inteSigence a more respectable position in
the pubUc estimation. Around htm are the dam,

®0 <DiiM Hu fiim

the lodge, the burrow, the tree-cutting, and the
artificial canal, each testifying to his handiwork,
and affording us an opportunity to see the appli-
cation as well as the results of his mental and
physical powers. There is no animal below man
in the entire range of Mammalia which offers to
our investigation such a series of works, or pre-
sents such remarkable material for study and
illustration of animal psychology."

Mr. Morgan was for years a capable and pains,
taking student of the beaver. That which he has
written is so important a contribution concerning
the oeaver that no one interested in this animal
can afford to be unacquainted with it. In the pre-
face of his book he says : " I took up the subject
as I did fishing, for summer recreation. In the
year 1861, I had occasion to visit the Red River
Settlement in the Hudson's Bay Territory, and
in 1862, to ascend the Missouri River to the
Rocky Mountains, which enabled me to com^
pare the works of the beaver in these localities
with those on Lake Superior. At the outset I
had no expectation of following up the subject
year after year, but was led on, by the interest

55

I !

II

I

which it awakened, until the materials collected
•eemed to be worth arranging for publication."
The greatest admirers of the beaver are those
who know him best. He bears acquaintance.
This cannot be had by merely looking at the
animal, nor by sympathetically studying his mon-
umental works. These works will of course im-
press one, but they give one at best only a trav-
eler's impression. Long and repeated visits to
the colony in its busy season appear to be the
best way to get at the character of the beaver.
The cubical contents of a dam may not even
suggest the obstacles overcome in its construc-
tion, the labor of getting the material, the dangers
avoided, the numerous unexpected difficulties
overcome. Five cords of green poles and limbs
m a neat pile in the pond by the beaver house
may tell that the harvest has been gathered, but
It does not tell that a part of this harvest may
have been gathered a mile away and skillfully
transported to the house with difficulty and amid
dangers. A j^art of the food-pile may have been
draggc i laboriously uphill and along trails which
required months of labor to open ; or numerous

5<5

piecei in thU pile may have been floated through
t canal of such magnitude that a generation was
required to construct it. Altogether, harvest-
gathering is interesting and heroic work on the
part of the beaver. In doing it he takes laige
nsks. for the harvest is usually gathered far
from the house and on the dangerous beaver
frontier.

For more than a quarter of a century I have
been a friendly visitor to his colonies, in which
I have lingered long and lovingly. That he makes
mistakes is certain, but that he is an intelligent,
reasoning animal I have long firmly believed'
As I said in "Wild Life on the Rockies," — •• I
have so often seen him change his plans so wisely
and meet emergencies so promptly and well that
I can think of him only as a reasoner."

As evidence that he sometimes reasons, it may
be cited that he occasionally endeavors to fell
trees in a given direction; that he often avoids
cutting those entangled at the top; that some-
times he will, on a windy day, fell trees on the
leeward side of a grove; that he commonly avoids
felling trees in the heart of a grove, but cuts on

57

maooon tmuumoM ran chart

(ANSI and BO TEST CHART No. 3)

il

I

Inlli

1.0

LI

ltt|2B

Itt

123

IM

tt

I3L2

116

IM

1^

1:25 lU I,

A

/ff>PUED »VHGE Inc

l«U eat< Main StiMi
Reetmtor, Nnr Yoik 14«IM USA
<71«) 4«2-0300-niOM
(7'4) 2W-»9W-F«i

3n (gtar^tt UOottb

theoutskirtsofit. He occasionally dams a stream,
digs a canal, leads water to a dry place, and there
forms and fills a reservoir and establishes a home.
Often his house is built by a spring and thus the
danger from thick ice avoided. These are some
of the reasons for my believing him to be intel-
ligent.

Morgan speaks of the beaver as " endowed with
a mental principle which performs for him the
same office that the human mind does for man,"
and says. "The works of the beaver afford many
interestingillustrations of his intelligence and rea-
soning capacity," also, " In the capacity thereby
displayed of ada ing their works to the ever-vary-
ing circumstances in which they find themselves
placed instead of following blindly an invariable
type, some evidence of possession on their part
oi/ree inUlligence is undoubtedly furnished."

Mr. George J. Romanes has the following
opinion of the beaver: « Most remarkable among
rodents for instinct and intelligence, unques-
tionably stands the beaver. Indeed there is no
animal— -not even excepting the ants and bees—
where instinct has risen to a higher level of far-

58

reaching adaptation to certain constant conditions
of environment, or where faculties, undoubtedly
instinctive, are more puzzlingly wrought up with
faculties no less undoubtedly intelligent. ... It
is truly an astonishing fact that animals should
engage in such vast architectural labors with
what appears to be the deliberate purpose of se-
curing, by such artificial means, the special bene-
fits that arise from their high engineering skill.
So astonishing, indeed, does this fact appear,
that as sober minded interpreters of fact we
would fain look for some explanation which would
not necessitate the inference that these actions
are due to any intelligent appreciation, either of
the benefits that arise from labor, or of the hydro-
static principles to which this labor so clearly
refers."

Mr. Alexander Majors, originator of the Pony
Express, who lived a long, alert life in the wilds,
pays the beaver the following peculiar tribute
in his "Seventy Years on the Frontier": "The
beaver, considered as an engineer, is a remark-
able animal. He can run a tunnel as direct as the
best engineer could do with his instruments to

59

3n QgfeaDer 1i?ottb

guide him. I have seen where they have built a
dam across a stream, and not having sufficient
head water to keep their pond full, they would
cross to a stream higher up the side of the moun-
tain, and cut a ditch from the upper stream
and connect it with the pond of the lower, and do
it as neatly as an engineer with his tools could
possibly do it. I have often said that the beaver
in the Rocky Mountains had more engineering
skill than the entire corps of engineers who were
connected with General Grant's army when he
besieged Vicksburg on the banks of the Missis-
sippi. The beaver would never have attempted
to turn the Mississippi into a canal to change its
channel without first making a dam across the
channel below the point of starting the canal.
The beaver, as I have said, rivals and sometimes
even excels the ingenuity of man."

Longfellow translates the spirit of the beaver
worid into words, and enables one in imagination
to restore the primeval scenes wherein the beaver
lived : —

" Should you ask me, whence these stories ?
Whence these legends and traditions,
60

1i

With the odors of the forest,

With the dew and damp of meadows,

Should you ask where Nawadaha
Found these songs so wild and wayward,
Found these legends and traditions,
I should answer, I should tell you,
' In the bird's-nests of the forest.
In the lodges of the beaver.' "

And the cunning Pau-Puk-Keewis, fleeing from
the wrath of Hiawatha, ran, —

" Till he came unto a streamlet
In the middle of the forest.
To a streamlet still and tranquil,
That had overflowed its margin,
To a dam made by the beavers,
To a pond of quiet water,
Where knee-deep the trees were standing.
Where the water-lilies floated.
Where the rushes waved and whispered.

On the dam stood Pau-Puk-Keewis,
On the dam of trunks and branches,
Through whose chinks the water spouted.
O'er whose summit flowed the streamlet.
From the bottom rose the beaver,
Looked with two great eyes of wonder.
Eyes that seemed to ask a question.
At the stranger Pau-Puk-Keewis."

Zl^i d^MMr <Sm

Z^ (gtar)tt ©am

AJIiLLiONs of beaver ponds graced Amer-
VlT^ ica's wild gardens at the time the first
settlers came. These ragged and poetic ponds
varied in length from a few feet to one mile, and
in area they were from one hundred acres down
to a miniature pond that half a dozen merry child-
ren might encircle. These ponds were formed by
dams built by beaver, and the dams varied greatly
in size and were made of poles variously combined
with sticks, stones, trash, rushes, and earth.

In the Bad Lands of Dakota I saw two dams
that were made of chunks of coal. This material
had caved from a near-by bluflF. I have noticed a
few that were constructed of cobble-stones. The
water-front of these dams was filled and covered
with clay, and they were the work of "grass
beavers," — beaver that subsist chiefly on grass,
and that live in localities almost destitute of
trees.

It is doubtful if a dam is ever made by felling

65

li

2n ^tar^tt lOOott^

logs or large trees a- ross the stream. I have, how-
ever, seen a few real log dams, but in these the
logs were placed parallel to the flow of water.
One of these was in the Sawtooth Mountains of
Idaho. Here a snow-slide swept several hundred
trees down the mountain. This wreckage was
piled on the bank of a stream. Heaver in a colony
a short distance away accepted this gift of the
gods, and of these unwieldy logs built a dam
about two hundred feet downstream from where
the avalanche had piled the logs. This dam was
a massive affair, about forty feet long and eight
feet high. It really appeared more like a logjam
than a dam, but it served the purpose intended
and raised the level of the river so that the water
overflowed to one side and spread in a broad
sheet against a cliff and through a grove of as-
pens, which the beaver proceeded to harvest.

The majority of dams are made of slender
green poles which are placed lengthwise with the
flow for the bottom, and set braced with the end
upstream a foot or so higher than the down-
stream end. With these there are occasionally
used small limby trees. The large end of the tree

66

til

i

^9* ^MMe ®atn

i» Pbced upstream, ,„d ,he ,m,ii bu,hy end

weighed down with mud or ..one.. Short, .tou"
.tick, and long, .lender pole, are deftly mingled
■n the dam a. .. ri.e,. The pole, overlie, and
many comp eted dam, appear „ though made
of gigantic nclined halWo.ed .hear, and comt
P»»«ofpole,. Thu, a dam i, doubly braced. The
»^.ght again., it i. re,i,.ed bo.h by .he endl
pole, tha. are parallel .0 ti,e flow and by .ho.^
»et at an angle .0 jt. '

The .hape and the material of a dam are de.
pendent on a number of thing,: the nature of
the p ace whe.« built, the kind of material, avail-
able for ... building, the pu^^se it i, i„,e„d^
to «rve. and the relation it may have to dam.
already con.tructed. Sometime, a .mall dam will
be made - that may ultimately become a big one
-by ..mply digging a ditch aero., the ,t«am

dli^'" " '"^ *' ""™"^ """«ri»' into a

Beaver, like men, are unequal in their .kill,
both in planning and in doing work, and the work
of mo,t beaver fall. ,hort of perfection. Error.are

67

Iff

r.

f

I
I

h Qg'eai^et Tbottb

not uncommon. More than one colony has com-
menced a dam apparently without knowing that
there -vas not sufficient available material to com-
plete it Others have built in the wrong places,
and have thus failed to flood the area which they
desired to reach or cover with water. Occasion-
ally the difficulties of construction have been too
great for the beaver who attempted it, and the
dam has been abandoned in an incomplete state.
Now and then a weak dam breaks, or a strong
one is swept out by a flood.

But why do beaver need or want the pond which
the dam forms? They need it for the purpose of
maintaining water of sufficient depth and area to
enable them to move about in safety, and to trans-
port their food-supplies with the greatest ease.
Above ?J1, the pond is a place of refuge into which
the beaver can constantly plunge and have secur-
ity from his numerous and ever watchful enemies.
The house-entrance must be kept water^rovered.
In the water the beaver is in his element On the
land he is a child lost in the wilds. He has ex-
tremely short legs and a heavy body. His make-
up fits him for movement in the water. He is a

68

i.'ji'

^9t ^MHt S>am

graceful swimmer, and in the water can move
easily and evade enemies ; while on land he is an
-ykward lubber, moves slowly, and is easity "ve"
taken. Water of sufficient depth and a«=^ then
« essential to the life and happinessof the I^v^r'
To have this at all times it is necessary, i„ io^.
1" "here the supply is at times insuSicient to
mamtain It by means of dams and ponds

»h,n '"'"f "* "^'^ """"'I the house;
sha low ponds with shores in near-by groves
^.hUte faraway logging. Dams a« p^^
«ross streams whose watets are to be led away
thmugh new channels and made to serve e J
where m canals or ponds. Dams are made across
mchned canals to catch and hold water in them.
S^a^s are beaver's avenues of tmvel. Along
shallow streams in a beaver country it is not un

hZZ"^ *° 1*^ "" '^'"'°"''' ''«"' «''"" which
fornisadeephole, which apparentlyfemaintained
» a harbor or place of safety into which travel-
.ng^teaver may dive and be made safe from

Most beaver dams are built on the installment
plan. They are the result of growth. The new

«9

I

i

3n QgfeaDet T&orfe

dam is short and comparatively low. It is enlarged
as conditions may require. As the trees in the
edge of the pond are harvested, the dam is built
higher and longer, so as to flood a larger area-
or as sediment fills the pond, the dam is from'
time to time raised and lengthened in order to
maintain the desired depth of water. Thus it may
grow through the years until the possibilities of
the locality are exhausted. The dam may then be
abanaoned. It may be used for a few years or it
may be used for a century. A gigantic beaver
dam may thus represent the work of several gen-
erations of beaver. It often occurs that one or
more generations may use a dam and yearly add
something to its size. By and by these beaver
may die or emigrate. The old dam remains, fall-
ing to ruin in places. Years go by and other
beaver come upon the scene. The old dam is
then used for the foundation for a new one. The
appearance of some old dams indicates that they
have been repeatedly used and abandoned.

New dams, being made largely of coarse mate-
rials, appear very unlike old ones. Decay, settling,
repairs, and other changes come rapidly. The

70

^

^9t (|>M)»er <S>m

2Tr *?'"!"■ "^"^""^ '° grass, willo,,,
and flower. On old. large dams it is not uncon,:
mon to see old forest-trees. The roots of these

d~nt^ !f I r"™'"'' """""'^' P«»«"ate
d«ply. and help to anchor securely the entire

In only a few cases are the water-fronts of
dams at once plastered or filled in with mud.
Th.s IS done only where there is a scarcity of
water It ,s the aim of the beaver to raise the
water ,n the pond to a certain height and ,he«
ma.nta,n ,t the chief puTx,se of the dam being
to regulate the height or the depth of the water
The water, m streaming through new dams, de-'
posite therein quantities of sticks, trash, and sedi-
ment, so that in a year or two these choke the

help to sohdify the dam. The discharge from
dams .s regulated by the beaver. In some i"
Stances water leaks through a dam in numerous
places from bottom to top; in others it seeps
through only close to the top; and in still othere
the dam is so solid that the water pou« over the

71

'('■

top in a thin sheet. In some cases, however, in-'
stead of the water pouring over the entire length
of the dam the beaver force it to pour over in a
given stretch at one end or the other, or some-
times through a hole or tunnel. The concentra-
tion of the overflow at some one point in the dam
IS commonly done either for the purpose of using
It m transportation or to force the water to out-
pour on a spot where it will least erode the
foundation of the dam. Occasionally beaver com-
pel the water to flow round the end of a dam.
which they raise sufficiently high for that purpose
' ometimes they dig a waste-way for the water.

European beaver appear to have barely devel-
oped to the dam-building stage. Rarely did they
build even a small, unimportant dam. Nor did
all the American beaver build dams. At the time
the beaver population was most numerous and
widely distributed, probably not more than half
of them used the dam. However, those not using
the dam were living in places where the dam and
consequent pond were not needed. Dam-building
enormously increased the habitable beaver area.
There were, and are, thousands of brooks which

72

t^t (gtaMc <S>m

«d. year c«,3e to flow for a period, yet on
ft^ brook, are all other beaver requirement,
except a permanent, sufficient water^upply Bv
dam-building water i, stored for to-morrow, or
stream^ourse, clianged. and with the assistance
of canals water is diverted to a d^r ravine where
a colony is established.

The dam is the largest and in many respects
the most mfluential beaver work. Across a stream
It IS an inviting thoroughfare for the folk of the
wild As soon as a dam is completed, it becomes
a wilderness highray. It is used day and night.
Across It go bears and lions, rabbits and wolves
mice and poreupines; chipmunks use it for a'
bndge. birds alight upon it, trout attempt to leap
■t and m the evening the graceful deer cast their
"flections with the willows in its quiet pond.
Across It dash pursuer and pursued. Upon it
take place battles and courtships. Often it is

with blood. Many a drama, romantic and pic-
tur^que^fierce and wild, is staged upon the

The beaver dam gives new character to the

73

I

m

^i

landscape. It frequently alters the course of a
stream and changes the topography. It intro-
duces water into the scene. It nourishes new
plant-life. It brings new birds. It provides a har-
bor and a home for fish throughout the changing
seasons. It seizes sediment and soil from the
rushing waters, and it sends water through sub-
terranean ways to form and feed springs which
give bloom to terraces below. It is a distributor
of the waters; and on days when dark clouds
are shaken with heavy thunder, the beaver dam
silently breasts, breaks, and delays the down-rush-
ing flood waters, saves and stores them ; then,
through all the rainless days that follow, it slowly
releases them.

Most old colonies have many dams and ponds.
A dam is sometimes built for the purpose of
forcing water back and to one side into a grove
that is to be harvested for food. In many cases
water flows round the end of a dam, and in mak-
ing its way back to the main channel is inter-
cepted by another dam. then another; and thus
the water from one small brook maintains a clus-
ter or chain of pondlets.

74

t^t (gmtt <S>m

The majority of beaver dams are as crooked
as a river's course. Now and then one is straight
A few are built from shore to a boulder, from the
boulder to a willowH:lump. and finally, perhaps,
from willow-clump to some outstretching penin-
sula on the further shore. It is not uncommon
for a short dam to be built and afterwards length-
ened with additions on each end which may
curve either down or up stream. Sometimes a
dam IS built outward from opposite shores simuL
taneously by separate but cooperating crews of
beaver. In swift water these ends are forced down-
stream m building, so that when they are finally
joined midstream the dam curves noticeably down-
stream.

On one occasion I watched beaver commence
and complete a dam in moderately swift water
that when finished bowed strongly upstream,
1 his, however, was not the intention of the build-
ers. The material for this dam consisted of wil-
low and alder poles that were cut some distance
upstream. These were floated down as used.
This dam was begun against a huge boulder near
midstream, and built outward simultaneously to-

75

'i

3n (gta}>tt TiJottb

ward both shores. Despite the repeated eflforts
of the builders to extend it in a straight line to
the shore, the flow of the water pushed these out-
building ends downward, and when they finally
reached the shore this fifty-odd feet of dam with
the boulder for a keystone had an arch that was
about fifteen feet in advance of the bases.

Not far from where I lived in the mountains
when a boy, the beaver built a dam. This had a
slight arch upstream. A few years later the dam
was doubled in length by building an extension
on the end which bowed downstream. It thus
stood a reverse curve. Later the dam was still
further lengthened by a comparatively straight
stretch on one erd, and by a short, down-bowing
stretch on the other. Recent additions to this
dam consis. of wings at the end which sweep up-
stream. The dam as it now stands reaches about
three fourths of the way around the pond which
it forms.

It is not uncommon for a dam to be planned
and built with an arch against the current or
against the water which it afterwards impounds.
The most interesting dam of this kind that I ever

76

:i

saw was one across the narrow neck of a rudely
bell-shaped basin that was about two hundred
feet m length. The material for this dam came
from a grove of aspens that extended into one
Side of the basin. The floor of this basin was
partlycovered with afewinchesof water. In start-
mg the dam the beaver evidently knew where
they wanted to build it. This was not by the
aspen grove where the materials were convenient
where the dam would need to be about one hun'
dred and twenty feet long, but was about fifty
feet farther on. where a dam of only forty feet
was required. This dam when completed bowed
seven feet against the enclosed water. The
beaver commenced building at the end nearest
the grove of aspens, pulling and dragging the
poles the fifty feet to it. They laid these Lpen
poles, which were two to five inches in diameter
and from four to twelve feet in length, at right
angles to the length of the dam,- and usually
placed the large end upstream or against the cur-
rent. But the water was shallow, and the trans-
portation of these poles to the dam was difficult
Accordingly a ditch or canal was dug from the

77

m

Jn fgunitt H^orfe

grove to the pl«» by the dam where the work
W" gomg on. Thi. ditch w« about twentjTfive

."and T T' «-" """^ ^"^ '-'•"^^
t and thereby afforded an easy mean, of float-

ng 0 transporting the pole, from the grove to

the place where they were being used Th°

of he dam, and Mveral feet in advance of the

pot where the outbuilding work wa, adilc

ng Upon the earth thrown up from thi, we,«

..d the upper or high end, of the pole,. When

the dam wa, finally completed, it w„ approx"

feet h.gh. A, ,oon a, it was completed, the
beaver ,tuffed the water.f™„t with mud and
gra,, root^ which were obtained by digging f * m

he Z 7"°".*'^" ■■■""'•*'*^y ^''-°o{
the dam In other word,, they enlarged their

pote-floatmg ditch above the dam into^adel^
and w.der channel, and u,ed thi, excavated Z
tenal for strengthening and waterproofing the

The longest beaver dam that I have ever seen
or measured was on the Jefferson River near

78

work
Y-five
Blled
float-
^e to
rhis
line
the
anc-
i^ere
hen

DXI-

our
the
md
3m
of
eir
•er
la-
le

;«

f !■

Three Forki. Montana. Thi. w« ,,40 feet lonj.
Mo., of ., w„ oIA Mo« *«, half of i. wa, leS
than ux feet in heigh,; two .hor, action, of it
however, were hventy-three fee, wide a, the ba^'
five on top, and fourteen feet high.

i
I

15<^ty>tB( tim )»it^ (gta}>tti

B

il!

^atr)t8t time urt^ (gtame

A^NE autumn I watched a beaver colony and
^observed the customs of its primitive inhab-
itants as they gathered their harvest for win-
ter. '• was the Spruce Tree Colony, the most
attractive of the sixteen beaver municipalities
on the big moraine on the slope of Long's

The first evening I concealed myself close to
the beaver house by the edge of the pond. Just
at sunset a large, aged beaver of striking, patri-
archal appearance rose in the water by the house
and swam slowly, silently round the pond He'
kept close to the shore and appeared to be scout-
ing to see if an enemy lurked near. On com-
pleting the circuit of the pond, he climbed upon
the end of a log that was thrust a few feet out
into the water. Presently several other beaver
appeared in the water close to the house. A few
of these at once left the pond and nosed quietly
about on the shore. The others swam about for

«3

Jn QgfeaDer DDottb

some minutes and then joined their comrades on
land, where all rested for a time.

Meanwhile the aged beaver had lifted a small
aspen limb out of the water and was squatted on
the log, leisurely eating bark. Before many min-
utes elapsed the other beavers became restless
and finally started up the slope in a runway.
They traveled slowly in single file and one by
one vanished amid the tall sedge. The old beaver
slipped noiselessly into the water, and a series of
low waves pointed toward the house. It was dark
as I stole away in silence for the night, and Mars
was gently throbbing in the black water.

This was an old beaver settlement, and the
numerous harvests gathered by its inhabitants
had long since exhausted the near-by growths of
aspen, the bark of which is the favorite food of
North American beaver, though the bark of the
willow, Cottonwood, alder, and birch is also eaten.
An examination of the aspen supply, together
with the lines of transportation, — the runways,
canals, and ponds, — indicated that this year's
harvest would have to be brought a long distance.
The place it would come from was an aspen

84

grove far up the slope, about a quarter of a mile
distant from the main house, and perhaps a hun-
dred and twenty feet above it. In this grove I
cut three notches in the trunks of several trees
to enable me to identify them whether in the
garnered pile by a house or along the line of
transportation to it.

The grounds of this colony occupied several
acres on a terraced, moderately steep slope of a
mountain moraine. Along one side rushed a
swift stream on which the colonists maintained
three but little used ponds. On the opposite side
were the slope and summit of the moraine. There
was a large pond at the bottom, and one or two
small ponds, or water-filled basins, dotted each
of the five terraces which rose above. The entire
grounds were perforated with subterranean pas-
sageways or tunnels.

Beaver commonly fill their ponds by damming
a brook or a river. But this colony obtained most

ofitswater-supplyfromspringswhichpouredforth
abundantly on the uppermost terrace, where the
water was led into one pond and a number of
basms. Overflowing from these, it either made a

8S

I.I

If

fT'

3^ dfeaDet iDoxt^

merry little cascade or went to lubricate a slide
on the short slopes which led to the ponds on
the terrace below. The waters from all terraces
were gathered into a large pond at the bottom.
This pond measured six hundred feet in cir-
cumference. The crooked and almost encircling
grass-grown dam was six feet high and four hun-
dred feet long. In its upper edge stood the main
house, which was eight feet high and forty feet
in circumference. There was also another house
on one of the terraces.

After notching the aspens I spent some time
exploring the colony grounds and did not return
to the marked trees until forty-eight hours had
elapsed. Harvest had begun, and one of the
largest notched trees had been felled and re-
moved. Its gnawed stump was six inches in di-
ameter and stood fifteen inches high. The limbs
had been trimmed ofif, and a number of these lay
scattered about the stump. The trunk, which
must have been about eighteen feet long, had
disappeared, cut into lengths of from three to six
feet, probably, and started toward the harvest
pile. Wondering for which house these logs were

86

intended, I followed, hoping to trace and trail
them to the house, or find them en route. From
the spot where they were cut. they had evidently
been rolled down a steep, grassy seventy-foot
slope, at the bottom of this dragged an equal dis-
tance over a level stretch among some lodgepole
pmes, and then pushed or dragged along a nar-
row runway that had been cut through a rank
growth of willows. Once through the willows
they were pushed into the uppermost pond. They
were taken across this, forced over the dam on
the opposite side, and shot down a slide into the
pond which contained the smaller house. Only
forty-eight hours before, the little logs which I
was following were in a tree, and now I expected
to find them by this house. It was good work to
have got them here so quickly, I thought. But
no logs could be found by the house or in the
pond! The folks at this place had not yet laid
up anything for winter. The logs must have gone
farther.

On the opposite side of this pond I found where
the logs had been dragged across the broad dam
and then heaved into a long, wet slide which

87

fi

i'l
m

3n (Sta}>tt l)7ot(b

landed them in a small, shallow harbor in the
grass. From this point a canal about eighty feet
long ran around the brow of the terrace and ended
at the top of a long slide which reached to the big
pond. This canal was new and probably had been
dug especially for this harvest For sixty feet of
its length it was quite regular in form and had an
average width of thirty inches and a depth of four-
teen. The mud dug in making it was piled evenly
along the lower side. Altogether it looked more
like the work of a careful man with a shovel than
of beaver without tools. Seepage and overflow
from the ponds above filled and flowed slowly
through it and out at the farther end, where it
swept down the long slide into the big pond.
Through this canal the logs had been taken one
by one. At the farther end I found the butt-end
log. It probably had been too heavy to heave out
of the canal, but tracks in the mud indicated that
there was a hard tussle before it was abandoned.
The pile of winter supplies was started. Close
to the big house a few aspen leaves fluttered on
twigs in the water; evidently these twigs were
attached to limbs or larger pieces of aspen that

88

were piled beneath the surface. Could it be that
the aspen which 1 had marked on the mountain-
side a quarter of a mile distant «> short a time
before and which 1 had followed over slope and
slide, through canal and basin, was now piled on
the bottom of this pondf I waded out into the
wa er, prodded about with a pole, and found sev-
"^ '"-^ller logs. Dragging one of these to the
surface. I found there were three notches in it.

Evidently these heavy green tree cuttings had
been sunk to the bottom simply by the piling of
other smiilar cuttings upon them. With this
heavy material in the still water a slight contact
with the bottom would prevent the drifting of ac-

fomed However, ,„ deep or swift water I have
noticed that an anchorage for the first few pieces
was secured by placing these upon the lower slope
of the house or against the dam.

Scores of aspens were felled in the grove where
the notched ones were. They were trimmed, cut
into sections, and limbs, logs, and all taken over
the route of the one I had followed, and at last
placed in a pile beside the big house. This bar-

«9

I

i

r-

^■1

3n (Star^tt D7ot(b

vest-gathering went on for a month. All about
was busy, earnest preparation for winter. The
squirrels from the tree-tops kept a rattling rain
of cones on the leaf-strewn forest floor, the cheery
chipmunk foraged and frolicked among the with-
ered leaves and plants, while aspens with leaves
of gold fell before the ivory sickles of the beaver.
Splendid glimpses, grand views, I had of this
strange harvest-home. How busy the beavers
were! They were busy in the grove on the steep
mountainside ; they tugged logs across the run-
ways; they hurried them across the water-basins,
wrestled with them in canals, and merrily piled
them by the rude house in the water. And I
watched them through the changing hours; I
saw their shadowy activity in the starry, silent
night; I saw them hopefully leave home for the
harvest groves in the serene twilight, and I
watched them working busily in the light of the
noonday sun.

Most of the aspens were cut ofT between thir-
teen and fifteen inches above the ground. A few
stumps were less than five inches high, while a
number were four feet high. These high cuttings

90

li!.,

were probably made from reclining trunks of
lodged aspens which were afterward removed.
The average diameter of the aspens cut was four
and one half inches at the top of the stump.
Numerous seedlings of an inch diameter were
cut, and the largest tree felled for this harvest
measured fourteen inches across the stump. This
had been laid low only a few hours before I found
it. and a bushel of white chips and cuttings en-
circled the lifeless stump like a wreath. In fall-
ing, the top had become entangled in an alder
thicket and lodged six feet from the ground. It
remained in this position for several days and
was apparently abandoned; but the last time I
went to see it the alders which upheld it were
being cut away. Although the alders were thick
upon the ground, only those which had upheld
the aspen had been cut. It may be that the
beaver which felled them looked and thought
before they went ahead with this cutting.

Why had this and several other large aspens
been left uncut in a place where all were con-
venient for harvest ? All other neighboring aspens
were cut years ago. One explanation is that the

9«

11

i

3n qBfea)»it lOottb

beaver realized that the tops of the aspens were en-
tangled and interlocked in the limbs of crowding
spruces and would not fall if cut off at the bottom.
This and one other aspen were the only large
ones that were felled, and the tops of these had
been recently released by the overturning of some
spruces and the breaking of several branches on
others. Other scattered large aspens were left
uncut, but all of these were clasped in the arms
of near-by spruces.

It was the habit of these colonists to transfer
a tree to the harvest pile promptly after cutting
it down. But one morning I found logs on slides
and in canals, and unfinished work in the gr . a e,
as though everything had been suddenly dropped
in the night when work was at its height. Coy-
otes had howled freely during the night, but this
was not uncommon. In going over the grounds
I found the explanation of this untidy work in
a bear track and numerous wolf tracks, freshly
moulded in the muddy places.

After the bulk of the harvest was gathered, I
went one day to the opposite side of the moraine
and briefly observed the methods of the Island

92

I

lil

ii

^TLT"'- "■ " •™^°'« '^t^ocolonieswere
•n some things very dife-.nt. In the Spruce Tree
Colony the custom w« to move the feVd J^
prompt,,. he harvest pne. In the Isll'S,"
ony the custom was to cut down most of th.
harvest before transporting a, y of ft t^th ' Ue
bes.de the house. Of the one hundred and sixC
two rees that had been feUed for this ha^e^t
one hundred and twenty-seven were still S
where they fell. However, the work^f ^^S
ng was getting underway; a few logs^^l
the pile bes,de the house, and numerous7fte«
w«e scattered along the canals, runways t,d
shd« between the house and the harves ^^^^
There was more wasted labor, too. f„ Z
Island Colony. This was noticeable in ^e at

r^ hat .ould not fall. One five-inch aspenlad
three umes been cut off at the bottom. The thirf
cut was more than three feet from the ground
--d w«, made by a beaver working fromS
of a fallen log. Still this high-cut aspen refusej

balloon entangled in tree-tops.

93

I

'I

'

3n (gea))et T&otfo

Prowling hunters have compelled most beaver
to work at night, but the Spruce Tree Colony
was an isolated one, and occasionally its members
worked and even played in the sunshine. Each
day I secluded myself, kept still, and waited; and
on a few occasions watched them as they worked
in the light.

One windy day, just as I was unroping myself
from the shaking limb of a spruce, I saw four
beaver plodding along in single file beneath.
They had come out of a hole between the roots
of the spruce. At an aspen growth about fifty feet
distant they separated. Though they had been
closely assembled, each appeared utterly obliv-
ious of the presence of the others. One squatted
on the ground by an aspen, took a bite of bark
out of it, and ate leisurely. By and by he rose,
clasped the aspen with fore paws, and began to
bite chips from it systematically. He was delib-
erately cutting it down. The most aged beaver
waddled near an aspen, gazed into its top for a
few seconds, then moved away about ten feet and
started to fell a five-inch aspen. The one rejected
was entangled at the top. Presently the third

94

W selected a t«e, and after some .rouble i„

cu"'"g- The fourth beaver disappeared anf I

this one the huge, aged beaver who < venerable
appearance had impressed me the first evS
appeared on the scene. He came out of a ho,!

uo nof . T*" '° "S"" "" '<> K'f'. nor

up nor down, as he ambled towarf the aloen

growth When about halfway there h whX
suddenlyandtoolcanuneasysurveyofthet e

he went on ^ -* apparently stolid indifference
he went on leisurely, and for a time paused
among the cutters, which did nothing toinS

hatthey realized hispresence.Heat^some"rk
from agreen I.mb on the ground, moved on and
went mto the hole beneath me. He append "o

a^ tM afterward measured the I^^^^
tween the two aspens where he paused. He was
not less than three and a half feet long and p™^
ably weighed fifty p„u„ds. He had all his Cs
the„ was no white spot on his bodv;i„fact,th^^

95

i I

I

!

ii

^i;

was neither mark nor blemish by which I could
positively identify him. Yet I feel that in my
month around the colony I beheld the patriarch
of the first evening in several scenes of action.

Sixty-seven minutes after the second beaver
began cutting he made a brief pause ; then he
suddenly thudded the ground with his tail, hur-
riedly took out a few more chips, and ran away,
with the other two beaver a little in advance, just
as his fouMnch aspen settled over and fell. All
paused for a time close to the hole beneath me,
and then the old beaver returned to his work.
The one that had felled his tree followed closely
and at once began on another aspen. The other
beaver, with his aspen half cut o£f, went into the
hole and did not again come out. By and by an
old and a young beaver came out of the hole.
The young one at once began cutting limbs off
the recently felled aspen, while the other began
work on the half-cut tree ; but he ignored the work
already done, and finally severed the trunk about
four inches above the cut made by the other.
Suddenly the old beaver whacked the ground
and ran, but at thirty feet distant he paused and

96

nervously thumped the ground with his tail as

.noTttT'" ''"''<' '"'■' '^"- Then he w "
into the hole beneath me.

This year's harvest was so much larger than
usual that it may be the population o£ thif colonT
had l«en mcreased by the arrival of emig„„,I
from a pej^ecuted colony down in tl. valJ
The total harvest numbered four hundred and

Kr T-.^"^" --i- harvest pTlef^u
feet h,gh and nmety feet in ciroumference A
h cfc covering of willows was placed on Z ff
the harvest pile,- 1 cannot tell for what Zm
unless it was to sink all th. , , , ^^

of theirs TU- uT 7 ^P*"' '«'°«' reach
erous "ts „f" T ''°''' '"g^'herwith num-

eZ i^the T ? "" "'"^' P'""'^' "'"ch are
eaten ,„ the water from the bottom of the pond

would support a numerous beaver populS
through the days of ice and snow.

evemhW *"" "J 'f '°" """"Sh the colony
everything was ready for the long and cold winter
Dams were in repair and pond? were brimm W
over w.th water, the fresh coats of mud on ft!

t.ful harvest was home. Harvest-gathering is full

97

•SI '

I

3^ (£^ea))ev "VOottb

of hope and romance. What a joy it must be to
every man or animal who has a hand in it ! What
a satisfaction, too, for all dependent upon a har-
vest, to know that there is abundance stored for
all the frosty days I

The people of this wild, strange, picturesque
colony had planned and prepared well. I wished
them a winter unvisited by cruel fate or foe, and
trusted that when June came again the fat and
furry young beavers would play with the aged
one amid the tiger lilies in the shadows of the
big spruce trees.

I

to

It
r-
)r

le

id
d
d

le

ttangpottt^on ScteitUite

11

Tt'l '""•"'^ ^^y years h«d greatly reduced
™ .hT'"*' <" Lily Lake, and'the con

situation for .ts beaver inhabitants. Tl,is lake
fove^d about ten ac.es. and w„ four f^'jl
m the deepest part, while over nine tenths of *e
area the water was two feet or less in depth it

one half of the area, and most of the reraainrf.r
became so shallow that beaver could Z^.

them to the attack of enemies and madVthe
transportation of supplies to th. i, ,

and difficult ^' """"• »'°*

sys'temtf dt "" "r*'" "^ ""« »° «'"sive
system of deep canals, _ the work of yeare Bv

mean, , ,hese deep canals the beaver ^'aWe

to use the place until the last, for these were fuU

of water even after the lake-bed was compfetell

I

3n (Sta}>tt Ti>ottb

exposed. One day in October while passing the
lake, I noticed a coyote on the farther shore stop
suddenly, prick up his ears, and give alert atten-
tion to an agitated forward movement in the
shallow water of a canal. Then he plunged into
the water and endeavored to seize a beaver that
was struggling forward through water that was
too shallow for his heavy body. Although this
beaver made his escape, other members of the
colony may i,ot have been so fortunate.

The drouth continued and by mid-October the
lake went entirely dry except in the canals. Off in
one comer stood the beaver house, a tiny rounded
and solitary hill in the miniature black plain of
lake-bed. With one exception the beaver aban-
doned the site and moved on to other scenes, I
know not where. One old beaver remained.
Whether he did this through the fear of not
being equal to the overland journey across the
dry rocky ridge and down into Wind River, or
whether from deep love of the old home associa-
tions, no one can say. But he remained and en-
deavored to make provision for the oncoming
winter. Close to the house he dug or enlarged

103

mniSf^f<^:

-, l-^

I.AKE-BKr. CANALS AT LII.V LAKK, OCT.,l!ER. I911

SECTrON OF A 750-rnOT CANAI. AT I.ILY LAKt
Here tive feit wiile and three (eel deep

l\

f <t

J!

if I

(

\\

^to .. he piled a number of green a.pen chunk,
«d cutt ng. , meagre food^pply ,„, «,. ,
cold winter that followed. Extreme cold beean
.n^.«^y November, and not until April wis

Before the lake-bed was »now<overed all the
«ume™u, canalsand basins which the bearer had
"cavated could be plainly ,een and e»m „^

performed m making these i, beyond compre-

e '«rionV°1 ' "r °' '"■°'°«'»'"'' "' *est
ToT lu . "'*^' ■"""''"■» nieasurement..
To the north of the house a pool had been dug
that wa, three feet deep, thirty feet long, anf
al^ut twenty wide. There extended from *U a

deen T^-T J ^ '*' ""•* '»<' fo" feet

aeep. This had a canal connection with the house

sp'rit h"T "' *^ ""'" ""^ °- "' *' feX'
spnngs which supply the lake. Another canal

«*.ch extended th,.e hund.^1 and fifty fee Tn '
northerly direction from the house, was from three

103

u

I

I :

I

"i

to four feet wide and three feet deep. The largest
ditch or canal was seven hundred and fifty feet
long and three feet deep throughout. This ex-
tended eastward, then northeasterly, and for one
hundred feet was five feet wide. In the remaining
six hundred and fifty feet it was three to four feet
wide. There were a number of minor ditches and
canals connecting the larger ones, and altogether
the extent of all made an impressive show in the
empty lake-basin.

Meantime the old beaver had a hard winter.
The cold weather persisted, and finally the well
in which he had deposited winter food froze to
the bottom. Even the entrance-holes into the
house were frozen shut. This sealed him in. The
old fellow, whose teeth were worn and whose
claws were bad, apparently tried in vain to break
out. On returning from three months' absence,
two friends and I investigated the old beaver's
condition. We broke through the frozen walls of
the house and crawled in. The old fellow was
still alive, though greatly emaciated. For some
time— I know not how long — he had subsisted
on the wood and the bark of some green sticks

104

ttangpoticdion S(^tiHt0

which had been built into an addition of the house
during the autumn. We cut several green aspens
into short lengths and threw them into the house.
Ihe broken hole was then closed. The old fel-
low accepted these cheerfully. For six weeks as-
pens were occasionally thrown to him. and at the
end of this time the spring warmth had melted
the deep snow. The water rose and filled the pond
and unsealed the entrance to the house, and again
the old fellow emerged into the water. The fol-
lowing summer he was joined, or rejoined, by a
number of other beaver.

In many localities the canals or ditches dug
and used by the beaver form their most necessaiy
and extensive works. These canals require enor-
mous labor and much skill. In point of interest
they even excel the house and the dam. It is re-
markable that of the thousands of stories concern-
ing the beaver only a few have mentioned the
beaver canals. These are labor-saving improve-
ments, and not only enable the beaver to live
easily and safely in places where he otherwise
could not live at all. but apparently they allow
him to live happily. The excavations made in

105

3n (JSt^r^tt Ti)ottb

taking material for house or dam commonly are
turned to useful purpose. The beaver not only
builds his mound-like house, but uses the basin
thus formed in excavating earthy material for the
house for a winter food depository. Ofttimes, too,
in building the dam he does it by piling up the
material dug from a ditch which runs parallel
and close to the dam, and which is useful to
him as a deep waterway after the dam is com-
pleted.

In transporting trees for food-supply, water
transportation is so much easier and safer than
land, that wherever the immediate surroundings
of the pond are comparatively level the beaver
endeavors to lead water out to tree groves by
digging a canal from the edge of the pond to
these groves. The felled trees are by this means
easily floated into the pond. One of the simplest
forms of beaver canal is a narrow, outward exten-
sion of the pond. This varies in length from a
few yards to one hundred feet or more.

Another and fairly common form of canal is
one that is built across low narrow necks of land
which thrust out into large beaver ponds, or on

io6

narrow stretches of land around which crooked
streams wander.

The majority of beaver ponds are comparatively
shallow over the greater portion of their area.
In many cases it is not easy, or even possible, to
deepen them. They may be so shallow that the
pond freezes to the bottom in winter except in
Its small deeper portion. The shallow pcuds are
made more usable by a number of canals in the
bottom. These canals assure deep-water stretches
under all condi' ions. Most beaver ponds have a
canal that closely parallels the dam. In some in-
stances this is extended around the pond a few
yards inside the shore-line. Two canals usually
extend from the house. One of these connects
with the canal by the dam, the other runs to the
place on the shore (commonly at the end of a trail
or slide) most visited by the beaver.

In Jefferson Valley, Montana, not far from
Three . )rks, I enjoyed tlie examination of num-
erous beaver workings, and made measurements
of the most interesting system of beaver canals
that I have ever seen. The beaver house for
which these canals did service was situated on

107

pi J
1 1 1

If!

3n (gtai>tt T&wft

he«,uth bank of the river.about three feet above
the summer level of the water and about V^
h^dred fee. north of the hiUy edge of the ^

mZI r" * ^"''"••"'aped canal, abou^
thirty-fivefeet in length, had been dug halfwaj
around the base of the house. Conne^t^ ^A

eet de.p and thirty-five feet in diameter. F™m
th« a canal extended southward two hundtJS

frllr. *• °~ ''""'>«<' and ten feet dist*
fern the house was a boulder that was aboutten

Over the greater portion of its length this
canal was four feet wide, and at no poinf w^«
narrower than three feet. Its averagrdeptTtL
twenty.e.ght inches. For one hundred and fo^

Z\ ,' '["" *'»"«'■ '» "PP^ximatefyS
~ of the valley and seepage filled ft :^t
water. A low. sem«.rcular dam. about fifty feet
n length, crossed it at the one-hundred-and
forty.even.foot mark, and served to catch a^d

io8

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ii

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It

ttangfotiaiion Jactftffe^

run seepage water into it, and also to act as a wall
across the canal to hold the water. The most
southerly sixty feet of this canal on the edge of the
foothills ran uphill, and was about four feet deep
at the upper end, four feet higher than the end by
the house. The dam across it was supplemented
by a wall forty-eight feet further on. This wall
was simply a short dam across the canal, in a
part that was inclined, and plainly for the purpose
of retaining water in the canal. The upper part
of the canal was filled with water by a streamlet
from off the slope. Apparently this canal was
old. for there was growing on its banks near the
house, a spruce tree, four inches in diameter, that
had grown since the canal was made.

The wall or small dam which beaver build
across canals that are inclined represents an in-
teresting phase of beaver development. That
these walls are built for the purpose of retaining
water in the canal appears certain. They are
most numerous in canals of steepest incline
though rarely less than twenty feet apart. I have
not seen a wall in an almost dead-level canal ex-
cept it was there for the purpose of raising 'the

109

w

m4 \

3n d^idMr TJOwt^

height of the water. This wall or buttress is after
all but a dam, and like most dams it is built for
the purpose of raising and maintaining the level
of water.

Extending at right angles westward from the
end of the old canal was a newer one of two
hundred and twenty-one feet. A wall separated
and united the two. One hundred and sixty feet
of this new canal ran along the contour of a hill
approximately at a dead level. Then came a wall.'
and from this the last sixty-one feet extended
southward up a shallow ravine. In this part there
were two walls. The upper end of the sixty-one-
foot extension was nine feet higher than the
house, and four hundred and twenty^ight feet dis-
tent from it. The two-hundred-and-twenty^ne-
foot extension was from twenty^ix to thirty-four
inches wide, and averaged twenty-two inches
deep. The entire new part was supplied with
spring water, which the beaver had diverted from
a ravine to the west and led by a seventy-foot
ditch into the upper end of their canal. Thirty
feet from the end of the canal were two burrows,
evidently safe places into which the beaver could

no

ttmfpotiaiion S^tUUg

retreat in case of sudden attack from wolves or
other foe. There were two other of these bur-
rows, one at the outer end of the old canal and
the other alongside the boulder one hundred and
ten feet from the house.

At the time I saw these canals, the only trees
near were those of an aspen grove which sur-
rounded the extreme end. It was autumn, and on
both tributary slopes by the end of the canal,
aspens were being cut, dragged, and rolled down
these slopes into the upper end of the canal, then
floated through its waters, dragged over and
across the walls, and at last piled up for winter
food in the basin by the house. In all probability
this long, large canal had been built a few yards
at a time, being extended as the trees near-by
were cut down and used.

Where beaver long inhabit a locality it is not
uncommon for them to have two or three distinct
and well-used trails from points on the water's
edge which lead into neighboring groves or tree-
clumps. These are the beaten tracks traveled by
the beaver as they go forth from the water for
food, and over which they drag their trees and

«,

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' 'I II

i i

III

saplings into the water. On steep slopes by the
water these are called slide.. This name is also
given to places in the dam over which beaver
frequently pass in their outgoings and incomings.
Commonly these trails avoid ridges and ground
swells by keeping in the bottom of a ravine-
logs are cut through and rolled out of the wav
or a tunnel driven beneath; obstructions are re-'
moved, or a good way made round them. Their
log roads compare favorably with the log roads of
woodsmen who cut with steel instead of enamel
In most old beaver colonies, where the char-
acter of the bottom of the pond permits it. there
are two or more tunnels or subways beneath the
floor o the principal pond. The main tunnel be-
gins close to the foundation of the house, and
penetrates the earth afoot or more beneath the
water to a point on land a few feet beyond the
shore.l,ne. If there are a number of smJl ponds
in a colony that are separated by fingers of land.
It IS not uncommon for these bits of land to be
penetrated by a thoroughfare tunnel. These tun-
nels through the separating bits of land enable
the beaver to go from one pond to another with-

112

out exposing themselves to dangers on land, and
also o£Fer an easy means of intercommunication
between ponds when these are icecovered. Pond
subways also afford a place of refuge or a means
of escape in case the house is destroyed, the dam
broken, or the pond drained, or in case the pond
should freeze to the bottom. Commonly these
are full of water, but some are empty. On the
Missouri and other rivers, where there are several
feet of cut banks above the water, beaver com-
monly dug a steeply inclined tunnel from the
nver's edge to the top of a bank a few feet back
Most of this tunnel work is hidden and remains
unknown. A striking example was in the Spruce
Tree Colony, elsewhere described. These colon-
ists, apparently disgusted by having their ponds
completely filled with sediment which came down
as the result of a cloudburst, abandoned the old
colony^ite. A new site was selected on a mo-
raine, only a short distance from the old one
Here m the sod a basin was scooped out, and
a dam made with the excavated material The
waters from a spring which burst forth in the
morame, about two hundred yards up the slope

"3

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3n (gtai^tt DOottb

and perhaps one hundred feet above, trickled
down and in due time formed a pond. The fol-
lowing year this pond was enlarged, and an-
other one built upon a terrace about one hun-
dred feet up the slope. From year to year there
were enlargements of the old pond and the build-
ing of new pondlets. until there were seven on
the terraces of this moraine. These, together
with the connecting slides and canals, required
more water than the spring supplied, especially
in the autumn when the beaver were floating
their winter supplies from pond to pond. Within
the colony area, too, were many water-filied un-
derground passages or subway tunnels. One of
these penetrated the turf beneath the willows for
more than two hundred feet.

While watching the autumnal activities of this
colony, as described in another chapter, I broke
through the surface and plunged my leg into an
underground channel or subway that was half
filled with water. Taking pains to trace this
stream downward, I found that it emptied into
the uppermost of the ponds along with the waters
from a small spring. Then, tracing the channel

114

upwards, I found that, about one hundred and
forty feet distant from the uppermost pond, it
connected with the waters of the brook on which
the old colony formerly had a place. This tunnel
over most of its course was about two feet be-
neath the surface, was fourteen inches in dia-
meter, and ran beneath the roots of spruce trees.
The water which the tunnel led from the brook
plainly was being used to increase the supply
needed in the canals, ponds, and pools of the
Spruce Tree Colony. The intake of this was in
a tiny pond which the beaver had formed by a
damlet across the brook. That this increased sup-
ply of water was of great advantage to the busy
and populous Spruce Tree Colony, there can be
no doubt. Was this tunnel planned and made for
this especial purpose, or was the increased water-
supply of the colony the result of accident by the
brook's breaking into this subway tunnel ?

The canals which beaver dig, the slides which
they use, the trails which they clear and establish,
conclusively show that these animals appreciate
the importance of good waterwa>'s and good roads,
— in other words, good transportation, facilities.'

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g^E Lily Lake beaver house, in which the old
^^^aver spent the drouthy winter, was a large
roughly rounded affair that measured twenty-two
feet in diameter. It rose only four feet above the
normal water-line. This house had been three
times altered and enlarged, and once raised in
height. Its mud walls were heavily reinforced with
poLlike sticks, which were placed at the junctures
of the enlargements. The one large room was more
than twelve feet in diameter. Near the centre
stood a support for the upper part of the house.
This support was about one and a half by two
and a half feet, and was composed for the most
part of sticks. But few houses have this support;
commonly the room is vaulted. The room itself
averaged two and a half feet high. It had four
entrances.

A house commonly has two entrances, but it
may have only one or as many as five. Thus the
way to the outer world from the inside of the

119

It !

111] 'I

Jn (gtaixt T&orft

i

house IS through one or more inclined passaee-
«^ or tunnel^ The upper opening of these Z
traces « .„ the floor a few inches above the

Thl '""'';"''" »■»« *ree feet of water,
foundation of the house. a„ about one foot in

full of «^ter almost to floor-level. This dark, win-
dowless hut has no other entrance

Most beaver houses stand in a pond, though
a number are built on the shoreand part „ in the
water a„d sHIl others on the bank a few f ^t
*7 «»» the water. The external appearance
and m emal construction of the houses are in a
general way the same, regardless of the situation

oundtobeshghtly elliptical. The diameter on

the height above water is from three to seven feet.
A house may be built almost entirely of sticks

^dtulTf'u"*'''''*^'''™''''''""-'-"^
and turf. In building, a smaU opem^ng is left,-

I20

or built around and over, -which is afterwards
enlarged into a room.

Houses that are built in a pond usually stand
m three or four feet of water. The foundation is
laid on the bottom of the pond, of the size in-
tended for the house, and built up a solid mass
to a few inches above water-level. This island-
like foundation is covered with a crude hemi-
sphere or dome-shaped house, the central portion
of the foundation forming the floor of the low-
vaulted room whi6h is enclosed by the thick
house-walls. In building the house the beaver
provide a temporary support for the combined
roof and walls by piling in the centre of the floor
a two-foot mound of mud. Over this is placed a
somewhat flattened tepee- or cone-shaped frame
of sticks and small poles. These stand on the
outer part of the foundation and lean inward
with upper ends meeting against and above the
temporary support. The beaver then cover this
framework with two or three feet of mud, brush,
and turf, and thus make the walls and the roof
of the house. When the outer part of the house
IS completed, they dig an inclined passageway

i

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121

t.BI

from the bottom of the pond up through the
foundation, into the irregular space left between
the supporting pile of mud and the walls. And
of this space they shape a room, by clawing out
the temporary support and gnawing off the in-
truding sticks. This represents the most highly
developed type of beaver house.

In most houses the temporary support is not
used, but a part of the wall is carried up to com-
pletion, and against it are leaned sticks, which
rest upon the edge of the remaining foundation.
A finished house of this kind has a slightly ellip-
tical outline. However, many a house is a crude
haphazard pile of material in which a room has
been burrowed.

The room is from one to three feet high, and
from three to twenty feet across. The room is a
kmd of a burrow and is without either door or win-
dow. Half-buried sticks make a comparatively dry
floor, despite the fact that it is only a few inches
above water-level. Beaver sleep on the floor,
usually with tail bent along the side after the
fashion of a dozing cat, in a nest of shredded
wood, which they patiently make by thinly split-

122

m

t9t ^timmt J^euBt

ting and paring pieces of wood. Just why this
kind of bedding is used cannot be said, but prob-
ably because this material dries more quickly, is
more comfortable and more sanitary, and harbors
fewer parasites. However, a few beds are made
of grass, leaves, or moss.

But little earthy matter is used in the tip-top
of the house, where the minute disjointed air-holes
between the interlaced poles give the room scanty
ventilation.

Except in a few cases where house-walls are
overgrown with willows or grass, the erosive ac-
tion of wind and water rapidly thins and weak-
ens them. Hence the house must receive frequent
repairs. Each autumn it is plastered or piled all
over with sticks or mud. The mud covering
varies in thickness from two to six inches. The
mud for this purpose is usually dredged from the
bottom of the pond close to the foundation of the
house. It is carried up, a double handful at a
time, the beaver waddling on his hind legs as he
holds it with his fore paws against his breast. A
half-dozen or more beaver may be carrying mud
up at once. The covering not only thickens the

123

if

11

III!'

I

3n (iStar^tt Tbottb

walls and increases the warmth of the house, but
also freezes and becomes an armor of stone that
IS impregnable to most beaver enemies. The
" mudding " of the house is a part of the natural
and necessary preparation for winter. It may also
be a special means of protection deliberately car-
ned out by the beaver. The fact that an occa-
sional thick-walled or grass-covered beaver house
was not thus plastered in autumn - perhaps be-
cause it did not need it -has led a few people
to affirm that beaver houses are not mud^overed
m the autumn. Many years of observation show
that most beaver houses do receive an autumnal
plastering, and the few that do not have this at-
tention usually have thick, well-preserved walls
and do not need it.

One autumn in Montana, of twentyseven
beaver houses which I examined, twenty^ne re-
ceived mud covering; three of the others were
thickly overgrown with willows and two were
grass-grown. Only one thin-walled house that
needed reinforcement did not receive it; and this
one, by the way, was broken into by a bear before
the wmter had got fairly under way.

124

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tit pcimitiu l§ou8t

In the autumn of 1 9 lo I made notes concerning
eighteen houses. These I watched during Octo-
ber and November. Thirteen were plastered; a
willow-grown one and a weed-grown one, both of
which had thicJr walls, were not plastered. The
remaining three were not greatly in need of ad-
ditional thickness, so received only a scanty cov-
ering of sticks. Two of these were broken into by
some animal during the winter, while none of the
others were disturbed.

Beaver frequently show good judgment in that
important matter of selecting a site for the house.
Ice and sediment are two factors with which the
beaver must constantly contend. In the pond the
house is commonly placed in deep water, and
apparently where the depth around it will not be
rapidly reduced by the depositing of sediment.
Keeping the house-entrance, the harvest-pile
basin, and the canals from filling with sediment
is one of the difficult problems of beaver life.

To guard against the rapid encroachments of
the deposits of sediment, one group of beaver,
apparently with forethought, built a dam that
formed a pond from the waters of a small spring

125

i
1 II

3n (gtaut Do^ttb

which carried but little or no sediment. I have
noticed a number of instances in which a pond
was made on a small streamlet with greater labor
than it would have required to form a pond in a
near-by brook. As there were a number of other
conditions favorable to the brook situation of the
house, the only conclusion I could reach was that
these selections for colony-sites were made with
the intention of avoiding the ever-encroaching
sediment, — for in some beaver ponds this sedi-
ment is deposited annually to the depth of sev-
eral inches.

Ice is one of the troubles of beaver existence.
It is of the utmost importance to the beaver that
he should have his house so situated that the ice
of winter does not close the entrance to it, and
also that the deep water in which his pile of
green provisions is deposited does not freeze
solid and thus exclude him from the food-
supply. The ice fills the pond from the top and
compels him to be constantly vigilant to save
himself from its encroachments. Many a beaver
home has been built alongside a spring, around
which the beaver dredged a deep hole and in this

126

t9t ptimiiiu l^oust

deposited the winter foodsuppiy. The constant
flow of the spring water prevented thick ice from
forming, both around the fn >c; pile and between
it and the house-entrance.

Large numbers of beaver f^o not po-.-^ess a
house. Beaver who live witLo a a dam ( pond
commonly do not builJ a hc^use, bu^ are c intent
with a burrow or a nunil.

ber o*

burrows in the
banks of the waters which ihc) inhabit. In the
severe struggle to live, there h a tendency on
the part of the beaver to avuiJ the building of
dams and houses, as these reveal their presence
and put the aggressive trapper on their trail.

Many colonies have both houses and burrows.
Apparently the houses were used in the winter-
time, the burrows in summer. One beaver bur-
row which I examined was about one foot above
the level of the pond and twelve feet distant
from it. The entrance tunnels were sixteen feet
in length, and began a trifle more than three
feet under water near the edge of the pond. This
burrow measured five and a half feet long, about
half as wide, and seventeen inches high. It was
immediately beneath the outspreading roots of

127

an Engelmann spruce. The majority of beaver
burrows are about two thirds the size of this one.
One November I examined more than a score
of beaver colonies. There was no snow, but re-
cent cold had covered the pond with ice and
solidified the miry surroundings. Over the frozen
surface I moved easily about and made many
measurements. One of these colonies was a fairly
typical one. The colony was on a swift-running
stream that came down from the snowy heights,
three miles distant. The top of Long's Peak and
Mt. Meeker looked down upon the scene. The
altitude of this colony was about nine thousand
feet. The ponds were in part surrounded by semi-
boggy willow flats, with here and there a high
point or a stretch of bank that was covered with
aspens. The tops of a few huge boulders thrust
up through the water. All around stood guard a
tall, dark forest of lodge-pole pines. These swept
up the mountainside, where they were displaced
by a growth of Engelmann spruce which reached
up t J timber-line on the heights above.

This colony had a number of ponds, with a
few short canals extending outward from them.

128

tit ^timiii}>t l^outft

A conical house of mud and slender poles stood
in the larger pond. Above this - ad there were
half a dozen pondlets, the uppermost of which
was formed across the brook by a semi-circular
dam. Over the outward ends of this dam the
water flowed and was caught in other ponds;
these in turn overflowed, the water traversing
two other ponds, one below the other, just above
the main one. Below the large pond were three
smaller ones in close succession. The dam of
each pond backed the water against the dam
above it.

The dam of the main pond was two hundred
and thirty feet long. Each end bent upward at a
sharp angle and extended a number of yards up-
stream. This dam measured five feet at its highest
point, but along the greater portion was only a
trifle more than three feet high. The central part
was overgrown with sedge and willows and ap-
peared old; but the extreme ends appeared new,
and probably had been in part constructed within
a few weeks. The whole dam was formed of earth
and slender poles. The pond formed by it was
one hundred and eighty feet wide, and had an

129

■

i ■

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li:
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Ij ^!

1^

3n (JStar^tt DOwtb

average length up and down stream of one hun-
dred and ten feet. The average depth was only
two feet

^ Near th« centre of this large pond stood the
house, a trifle nearer to the dam than to the
upper edge of the pond. I measured it on the
water- or rather the ice-le^cL It took twenty-six
feet of rope to go around it. Tfce top of the house
rose exactly five feet above the ice. The house
was built of a mixture of sods and willow sticks.
Tli# ends of the sticks here and there thrust out
through the three-or-four-inch covering of mud
which the house had recently received. Wonder-
ing how much of the house was in the water be-
low the level of the ice, I ^bought to measure the
depth by thruitliig a pole through the ice to the
bottom. Hoidliig it in Ml upright position, I raised
it and brought it down with all my strength.
The pole went through the ice and so did I.
The water was three feet deep. This depth cov-
ered only a small area around the house and was
maintained by frequent digging. The house is
often plastered with this dredged material. Alto-
gether, ther, the house from its lowest founda-

130

tion on the bottom of the pond to the conical
top was eight feet high. The foundation of this
house was made of turf, masses of grass roots,
and a small percentage of mud thickly reinforced
with numerous willow sticks. The floor was
mostly sticks. As the entrance tunnels were filled
with water to a point about three inches below
the floor-level, and as these were the only en-
trances or openings into the house, friend or foe
could enter only by coming up through one or
the other of these water-filled tunnels from the
bottom of the pond.

The single, circular, dome-like room of this
house was four and a half feet in diameter and
about two feet in height. Its ceiling was roughly
formed by a confused interlacing of sticks, which
stood at an angle. The spaces between were filled
with root-matted mud. The walls were a trifle
more than two feet thick, except around the coni-
cal top. Here was a small space, mostly of inter-
lacing sticks, the thickness of which was but one
foot. As very little mud had been used in this part,
there were thus left a few tiny air-holes. As I ap-
proached, there could be seen arising from these

131

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^1-1

3n (iStay^tt lOwte

holes the steamy and scented breath of the beaver
inhabitants within. Since the ventilation of beaver
houses is exceedingly poor, and as this anim;ri
probably does not suffer from tuberculosis, it is
possible that ventilation is assisted, and some
of the impure air absorbed by the water, which
rises almost to the floor in the large entrance-
holes.

The early trappers from time to time noted

extended general movements or emigrations

among beaver, which embraced an enormous area.

They, as with human emigrants, probably were

seeking a safer, better home. Some of these move-

ments were upstream, others down ; commonly

away from civilization, but occasionally tovani

It. For this the Missouri River was tiM great

highway. Limited emigrations of this kind still

occasionally occur.

The annual migration is a different affair. This
has been noted for some hundred and fifty yeara
or more, and probably has gone on for centuries.
This peculiar migration might be called a migra-
tory outing. In it all members of the colony
appear to have taken part, leaving home in June,

132

scattering as the season advanced. Rambles were
made up and down stream, other beaver settle-
nients visited, brief stays made at lakes, adven-
tures had up shallow brooks, and daring journeys
made on portages. The country was explored,
i he dangers and restrictions imposed during the
last twenty-five years appear in some localities
to have checked this movement, and in others to
have stopped it completely. But in most colonies
It still goes on, though probably not usually en-
joyed by mothers and children except to a limited
extent.

By the first of September all have returned to
the home, or joined another a !ony or assembled
at the place where a new colony is to be founded.

This annual vacation probably sustained the health
of the colonists; they got away from the parasites
and the bad air of their houses. The outing was

takenforthesheerjoyofit.Incidentally,it brought
beaver into new territory and acquainted them
With desirable colony-sites and the route thereto
-useful information in case the colonists were
compelled suddenly to abandon the old home
It is natural for the beaver to be silent In

i33

?I !

I ' •

3» lifmtt Tthitb

rilence he becom« intinate with the elements.

n.~ds and movements tiat concern him. He i,
am«termt«„,Uting,o«nd.I,waken,o,warn

ir ri '"^'^ -' "- "^ ^^ -

in ?,f !*?"'? '"""*' " ''» f"'""* »!«>«> home
■n safety he sits and sleeps in darkness. He^

no. see outside but the ever.hangi„, conj.."^
o the sunoundmg outer world a«%v„w ^

trate the thick windowless walls of his ho«e^
hea., the cries of the coyote and the o^^, ^
call of moose, the wild and fleetin, l.„gh^? Z
kmgfisher. the elemental melod,7,he ^V *I
-ny a„ echo faintly from afL. ^.l^t

and. above h,s head, the «king threat of ^
upon the top of his house. E^dlesly .^ tZ
slides and gently pou,. over f.e damf and ^
ebbs around the pond's primeval J.oZ.^1
earthquake thunder warns of storm, thTflo^I
Z^ through day and night the cleared^d
calmed stream goes by. The wind booms among

tit ptimiH}>t j^ic0e

the baffling pines, and the broken and leafless
tree falls with a crash I There is silencel Along
the stream's open way through the woods num-
berless breezes whisper and pause by the primi-
tive house in the water.

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t^ (gtAm'e Sneering

n^EAuanG that the supply of aspens near the
KZr waters of the Moraine Colony close to my
home was almost exhausted, I wondered whether
it would be possible for the beavers to procure
a sufficient supply downstream, or whether they
would deem it best to abandon this old colony
and migrate.

Out on the plains, where cottonwoods were
scarce, the beavers first cut those close to the
colony, then harvested those upstream, sometimes
going a mile for them, then those downstream ;
but rarely were the latter brought more than a
quarter of a mile. If enemies did not keep down
the population of a colony so situated, it was only
a question of time until the scarcity of the food-
supply compelled the colonists to move either up
or down stream and start anew in a place where
food trees could be obtained. But not a move
until necessity drove them !
Not far from my home in the mountains the

139

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inhabitants of two old beaver colonies endure
hardships in order to remain in the old plac«
One colony, in order to reach a grove of aspenj
dug a canal three hundred and thirty-four fee
long, which had an average depth of fifteen inchej
and a width of twenty-six inches. It ended in i
grove of aspens, which were in due time cut down
and floated through this canal into the pond
alongside the beaver house. The other colony
endured dangers and greater hardships.

During the summer of 1900 an extensive forest
fire on the northerly slope of Long's Peak wrought
great hardship among beaver colonies along the
streams in the fire -^:3trict This fire destroyed
all the aspens and some of the willows. In order
to have food while a new growth of aspens was
developing, the beavers at a colony on the Bier-
stadt Moraine were compelled to bring their
winter supply of aspens the distance of a quarter
of a mile from an isolated grove that had escaped
the fire. This stood on a bench of the moraine at
an altitude about fifty feet greater than that of
the beaver pond. Aspens from the grove were,
dragged about two hundred feet, then floated

140

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across a small water-hole, and from this taken up
the steep slope of a ridge, then down to a point
about one hundred feet from the pond. Between
this place and the pond was a deep wreckage of
fire-k,lled and fallen spruces. To cut an avenue
through these was too great a task for the beav-
ers ; so with much labor they dug a canal beneath
the wide heap of wreckage, and through this
beneath the gigantic fallen trees, the harvested
aspens were dragged and piled in the pond for
winter food. The gathering of these harvests,
even by beavers, must have been almost a hope-
less task. In going thus far from water many of
the harvesters were exposed to their enemies, and
It IS probable that many beavers lost their lives.
Beavers become strongly attached to localities
and especially to their homes. It is difficult to
drive them away from these, but the exhaustion
of the food-supply sometimes compels an entire
colony to abandon the old home^ite. migrate,
and found a new colony. Some of the beavers'
most audacious engineering works are under-
taken for the purpose of maintaining the food-
supply of the colony. It occasionally happens

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that the food trees near the water by an old colony
become scarce through excessive cutting, fires, or
tree diseases. In cases of this kind the colonists
must go a longdistance for their supplies, or move.
They prefer to stay at the old place, and will work
for weeks and brave dangers to be able to do
this. They will build a dam, dig a new canal,
clear a difficult right-of-way to a grove of food
saplings, and then drag the harvest a longdis-
tance to the water; and now and then do all these
for just one more harvest, one more year in the
old home.

The Moraine Colony had lost its former great-
ness. Instead of the several ponds and the eight
houses of which it had consisted twenty years be-
fore, only one house and a single pond remained,
The house was in the deep water of the pond,
about twenty feet above the dam. A vigorous
brook from Chasm Lake, three thousand feet
above, ran through the pond and poured over the
dam near the house. The colony was on a delta
tongue of a moraine. Here it had been estab-
lished for generations. It was embowered in a
young pine forest and had ragged areas of willows

142

around it. A fire and excessive cutting by beav-
ers had left but few aspens near the water. These
could furnish food for no more than two autumn
harvests, and perhaps for only one. Other colon-
ies had met similar conditions. How would the
Moraine Colony handle theirs?

The Moraine colonists mastered the situation
m their place with the most audacious piece of
work I have ever known beavers to plan and ac-
complish. About one hundred and thirty feet
south of the old pond was a grove of aspens. Be-
tween these and the pond was a small bouldery
flat that had a scattering of dead and standing
spruces and young lodge-pole pines. A number
of fallen spruces lay broken among the partly ex-
posed boulders of the flat. One day I was aston-
ished to find that a dam was being built across
this flat, and still more astonished to discover
that this dam was being made of heavy sections
of fire-killed trees. Under necessity only will
beavers gnaw dead wood, and then only to a
limited extent Such had been my observations
for years; but here they were cutting dead, fire-
hardened logs in a wholesale manner. Why were

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they cutting this dead wood, and why a dam acr.

a rocky flat,— a place across which water ne^

flowed? A dam of dead timber across a dry i

appeared to be a marked combination of anin

stupidity,~but the beavers knew what they wc

doing. After watching their activities and t

progress of the dam daily for a month, I realiz(

that they were doing development work, with tl

mtention of procuring a food-supply. They cor

pleted a dam of dead timber.

At least two accidents happened to the buil,

ers of this dead-wood dam. One of these occurre

when a tree which the beavers had gnawed o

pmned the beaver that had cut it between its en

and another tree immediately behind the anima

The other accident was caused by a tree falling

in an unexpected direction. This tree was lear

mg against a fallen one that was held several fee

above the earth by a boulder. When cut off. in

stead of falling directly to the earth it slid along

side the log against which -t had been leanim

and was shunted off to one side, falling upon anc

instantly killing two of the logging beavers.

The dam, when completed, was eighty-five feel

144

im across
ter never
I dry flat
i animal
hey were
and the
realized
with the
»ey com-

le build-
iccurred
wed off

its end
animal.
! falling
is lean-
iral feet
off, in-

along-
eaning
on and
s.
ve feet

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long. It was about fifty feet below the main pond
and sixty feet distant from the south side of it
Fifty feet of the new dam ran north and sou. :
para'lel to the old one; then, forming a right
angle, it extended thirty-five feet toward the east
It averaged three feet in height, being made al.
most entirely of large chunks, dead-tree cuttings
from six to fifteen inches in diameter and from
two to twelve feet long. It appeared a crude
windrow of dead-timber wreckage.

The day it was completed the buildera shifted
the scene of activity to the brook, a short dis-
tance below the point where it emerged from the
main pond. Here they placed a small dam across
It and commenced work on a canal, through
which they endeavored to lead a part of the wateis
of the brook into the reservoir which their dead,
wood dam had formed.

There was a swell or slight rise in the earth of
about eighteen inches between the reservoir and
the head of the canal that was to carry water
into it The swell, I suppose, was not considered
by the beavers. At any rate, they completed
about half the length of the canal, then appar-

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ently discovered that water would not flow
through it in the direction desired. Other canal-
builders have made similar errors. The beavers
were almost human. This part of the canal was
abandoned and a new start made. The beavers
now apparently tried to overcome the swell in
the earth by an artificial work.

A pondlet was formed immediately below the
old pond by building a sixty-foot bow-like dam,
the ends of which were attached to the old dam.
The brook pouring from the old pond quickly
filled this new narrow, sixty-foot-long reservoir.
The outlet of this was made over the bow dam at
the point nearest to the waiting reservoir of the
dead-wood dam. The water, where it poured
over the outlet of the bow dam, failed to flow
toward the waiting reservoir, but was shed off to
one side by the earth^well before it. Instead of
flowing southward, it flowed eastward. The beav-
ers remedied this and directed the flow by build-
ing a wing dam, which extended southward from
the bow dam at the point where the water over-
poured. This earthwork was about fifteen feet
long, four feet wide, and two high. Along the

146

upper side of this the water flowed, and from its
end a canal was dug to the reservoir.
About half of the brook was diverted, and this

amountofwatercoveredtheflatandformedapond
to the height of the dead-wood dam in less than
three days. Most of the leaky openings in this
dam early became clogged with leaves, trash, and
sediment that were carried in by the water, but
here and there were large openings which the
beavers mudded themselves. The new pond was
a httle more than one hundred feet long and
from forty to fifty feet wide. Its southerly shore
flooded mto the edge of the aspen grove which
the beavers were planning to harvest.

The canal was from four to five feet wide and
from eight to twenty inches deep. The actual dis-
tance that lay between the brook and the shore
of the new pond was ninety feet. Though the
diverting of the water was a task, it required less
labor than the building of the dam.

With dead timber and the canal, the beavers
had labored two seasons for the purpose of get-
tingmoresupplies without abandoning the colony
If in building the dam they had used the green,

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easily cut aspens, they would have greatly reduced
the available food-supply. It would have required
most of these aspens to build the dam. The only
conclusion I can reach is that the beavers not
only had the forethought to begin work to obtain
a food-supply that would be needed two yeare
after, but also, at the expense of much labor,
actually saved the scanty near-by food-supply of
aspens by making their dam with the hard, fire-
killed trees.

A large harvest of aspen and willow was
gathered for winter. Daily visits to the scene of
the harvest enabled me to understand many
of the methods and much of the work that others
wise would have gone on unknown to me. Early
in the harvest an aspen cluster far downstream
was cut. Every tree in this cluster and every
near-by aspen wa. felled, dragged to the brook,
and in this, with wrestling, pushing, and pulling,
taken upstream throughshallow water,— for most
mountain streams are low during the autumn.
In the midst of this work the entrance or inlet
of the canal was blocked and the bow dam was
cut. The water in the brook was almost doubled

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in volume by the closing of the canal, thereby
making the transportation of aspens upstream
less laborious.

When the downstream aspens at last reposed
in a pile beside the house, harvesting was briskly
begun in the aspens along the shore of the new
pond. Then came another surprise. The bow
dam was repaired, and the canal not only opened,
but enlarged so that almost all the water in the
brook was diverted into the canal, through which
it flowed into the new pond.

The aspens cut on the shore of the new pond
were floated across it, then dragged up the canal
mto the old pond. Evidently the beavers not only
had again turned the water into the canal that
they might use it in transportation, but also had
increased the original volume of water simply to
make this transportation of the aspens as easy as
possible.

Their new works enabled the colonists to pro-
cure nearlv five hundred aspens for the winter.
All these were taken up the new canal, dragged
over the bow and the main dams, and piled in
the water by the house. In addition to these, the

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aspens brought from downstream made the total
of the harvest seven hundred and thirty-two trees;
and with these went several hundred small willows.
Altogether these made a large green brush-pile
that measured more than a hundred feet in cir-
cumference, and after it settled averaged four feet
in depth. This was the food-supply for the on-
coming winter. The upper surface of this stood
about one foot above the surface of the water.

Five years after the completion of this dead-
wood dam it was so overgrown with willows and
grass tha' /he original material — the dead tree-
trunks tha"^ .ormed the major portion of it — was
completely cover<:d over. The new pond was used
but one season. All the aspens that were made
available by the dam of the pond were cut in one
harvest. The place is now abandoned, old ponds
and new.

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g^NTv-six years ago. while studying glacia-
^^ tion on the slope of Long's Peak, I came
upon a cluster of eight beaver houses. These
crude conical mud huts were in a forest pond far
up on the mountainside. In this colony of our
first engineers were so many things of interest
that the fascinating study of the dead Ice King's
ruins and records was indefinitely given up in
order to observe Citizen Beaver's works and ways
A pile of granite boulders on the edge of the
pond stood several feet above the water-level, and
from the top of these the entire colony and its
oper^ions could be seen. On these I spent days
observing and enjoying the autumnal activities
of Beaverdom.

It was the busiest time of the year for these
industrious folk. General and extensive prepara-
tions were now being made for the long winter
amid the mountain snows. A harvest of scores
of trees was being gathered and work on a new

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house was in progress, while the old houses were
receiving repairs. It was a serene autumn day
when I came into the picturesque village of these
primitive people. The aspens were golden, the
willows rusty, the grass tanned, and the pines
were purring in the easy air.

The colony-site was in a small basin amid
morainal debris at an altitude of nine thousand
feet above the sea-level. I at once christened it
the Moraine Colony. The scene was utterly wild.
Peaks of crags and snow rose steep and high
above all ; all around crowded a dense evergreen
forest of pine and spruce. A few small swamps
reposed in this forest, while here and there in it
bristled several gigantic windrows of boulders.
A ragged belt of aspens surrounded the several
ponds and separated the pines and spruces from
the fringe of water-lov .' \g willows along the shores.
There were three large ponds in succession and
below these a number of smaller ones. The dams
that formed the large ponds were willow-grown,
earthy structures about four feet in height, and
all sagged downstream. The houses were grouped
in the middle pond, the largest one, the dam of

154

tie (Futneb 4::ofon^

which was more than three hundred feet long.
Three of these lake dwellings stood near the
upper margin, close to where the brook poured
in. The other five were clustered by the outlet,
just below which a small willow-grown, boulder-
dotted island lay between the divided waters of
the stream.

A number of beavers were busy gnawing down
aspens, while others cut the felled ones into sec-
tions, pushed and rolled the sections into the
water, and then floated them to the harvest piles,
one of which was being made beside each house.
Some were quietly at work spreading a coat of
mud on the outside of each house. This would
freeze and defy the tooth and claw of the hun-
griest or the strongest predaceous enemy. Four
beavers were leisurely lengthening and repairing
a dam. A few worked singly, but most of them
were in groups. All worked quietly and with ap-
parent deliberation, but all were in motion, so
that it was a busy scene. " To work like a beaver I "
What a stirring exhibition of beaver industry and
forethought I viewed from my boulder-pile I
At times upward of forty of them were in

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sight Though there was a general cobperation,
yet each one appeared to do his part without
orders or direction. Time and again a group of
workers completed a task, and without pause sil-
ently moved off, and began another. Everything
appeared to go on mechanically. It produced a
strange feeling to see so many workers doing so
many kinds of work effectively and automatically.
Again and again I listened for the superintend-
ent's voice ; constantly I watched to see the over-
seermove among them ; but I listened and watched
in vain. Yet I feel that some of the patriarchal
fellows must have carried a general plan of the
work, and that during its progress orders and di-
rections that I could not comprehend were given
from time to time.

The work was at its height a little before mid-
day. Nowadays it is rare for a beaver to work in
daylight. Men and guns have prevented daylight
workers from leaving descendants. These not only
worked but played by day. One morning for
more than an hour there was a general frolic, in
which the entire population appeared to take
part. They raced, dived, crowded in general

156

tit (Buinth Cot^^

mix-upi, whacked the water with their Uili,
wrestled, and dived again. There were two or
three pIayH:entres, but the play went on without
intermission, and as their position constantly
changed, the merrymakers splashed water all
over the main pond before they calmed down and
in silence returned to work. I gave most atten-
tion to the harvesters, who felled the aspens and
moved them, bodily or in sections, by land and
water to the harvest piles. One tree on the shore
of the pond, which was felled into the water, was
eight inches in diameter and fifteen feet high.
Without having even a limb cut off, it was floated
to the nearest harvest pile. Another, about the
same size, which was procured some fifty feet
from the water, was cut into four sections and
its branches removed; then a single beaver would
take a branch in his teeth, drag it to the water,
and swim with it to a harvest pile. But four
beavers united to transport the largest section to
the water. They pushed with fore paws, with
breasts, and with hips. Plainly it was too heavy
for them. They paused. " Now they will go for
help," I said to myself, "and I shall find out who

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the boss IK." But to my astonishment one of them
began to gnaw the piece in two, and two more
began to clear a narrow way to the water, while
the fourth set himself to cutting down another
aspen. Good roads and open waterways are the
rule, and perhaps the necessary rule, of beaver
colonies.

I became deeply interested in this colony,
which was situated within two miles of my cabin,
and its nearness enabled me to be a frequent
visitor and to follow closely its fortunes and mis-
fortunes. About the hut-filled pond I lingered
when it was covered with winter's white, when
fringed with the gentian's blue, and while decked
with the pond-lily's yellow glory.

Fire ruined it during an autumn of drouth. One
morning, while watching from the boulderpile, I
noticed an occasional flake of ash dropping into
the pond. Soon smoke scented the air, then came
the awful and subdued roar of a forest fire. I fled,
and from above the timber-line watched the storm-
cloud of black smoke sweep furiously forward,
bursting and closing to the terrible leaps of red
and tattered flames. Before noon several thou-

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Mnd acres of forest were dead, all leaver and
twigs were in ashes, all tree-trunks blistered and
blackened.

The Moraine Colony was closely embowered
in a pitchy forest For a time the houses in the
water must have been wrapped in flames of
smelter heat. Could these mud houses stand this?
The beavers themselves I knew would escape by
sinking under the water. Next morning I went
through the hot, smoky area and found every
house cracked and crumbling; not one was in-
habitable. Most serious of all was the total loss
of the uncut food-supply, when harvesting for
winter had c.ily begun.

Would these energetic people starve at home
or would they try to find refuge in some other
colony? Would they endeavor to find a grove
that the fire had missed and there start anew?
The intense heat had consumed almost every
fibrous thing above the surface. The piles of
garnered green aspen were charred to the water-
line; all that remained of willow thickets and
aspen groves were thousandsof blackened pickets
and points, acres of coarse charcoal stubble. It

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was a dreary, starving outlook for my furred
friends.

I left the scene to explore the entire burned
area. After wandering for hours amid ashes and
charcoal, seeing here and there the seared car-
cass of a deer or some other wild animal, I came
upon a beaver colony that had escaped the fire.
It was in the midst of several acres of swampy
ground that was covered with fire-resistirg wil-
lows and aspens. The surrounding pine forest
was not dense, and the heat it produced in burn-
ing did no damage to the scattered beaver houses.

From the top of a granite crag I surveyed the
green scene of life and the surrounding sweep of
desolation. Here and there a sodden log F,mould-
ered in the ashen distance and supported a tower
of smoke in the still air. A few miles to the east,
among the scattered trees of a rocky summit,
the fire was burning itself out; to the west the
sun was sinking behind crags and snow; near
by, on a blackened limb, a south-bound robin
chattered volubly but hopelessly.

While I was listening, thinking, and watching,
a mountain lion appeared and leaped lightly upon

i6o

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^9e $utm^ Colony

a block of granite. He was on my right, about one
hundred feet away and about an equal distance
from the shore of the nearest pond. He was in-
terested in the approach of something. With a
nervous switching of his tail he peered eagerly
forward over the crown of the ridge just before
him, and then crouched tensely and expectantly
upon his rock.

A pine tree that had escaped the fire screened
the place toward which the lion looked and where
something evidently was approaching. While I
was trying to discover what it could be, a coyote
trotted into view. Without catching sight of the
near-by lion, he suddenly stopped and fixed his
gaze upon the point that so interested the crouch-
ing beast. The mystery was solved when thirty
or forty beavers came hurrying into view. They
had come from the ruined Moraine Colony.

I thought to myself that the coyote, stuffed as
he must be with the seared flesh of fire-roasted
victims, would not attack them ; but a lion wants
a fresh kill for every meal, and so I watched the
movements of the latter. He adjusted his feet
a trifle and made ready to spring. The beavers

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were getting close ; but just as I was about to
shout to frighten him, the coyote leaped among
them and began killing.

In the excitement of getting off the crag I
narrowly escaped breaking my neck. Once on
the ground, I ran for the coyote, shouting wildly
to frighten him off ; but he was so intent upon
killing that a violent kick in the ribs first made
him aware of my presence. In anger and excite-
ment he leaped at me with ugly teeth as he fled.
The lion had disappeared, and by this time the
beavers in the front ranks were jumping into the
pond, while the others were awkwardly speeding
down the slope. The coyote had killed three. If
beavers have a language, surely that night the
refugees related to their hospitable neighbors
some thrilling experiences.

The next morning I returned to the Moraine
Colony over the route followed by the refugees.
Leaving their fire-ruined homes, they had fol-
lowed the stream that issued from their ponds.
In places the channel was so clogged with fire
wreckage that they had followed alongside the
water rather than in it, as is their wont. At one

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t^t (^utneb 4:;ofon^

place they had hurriedly taken refuge in the
stream. Coyote tracks in the scattered ashes ex-
plained this. But after going a short distance
they had climbed from the water and again
traveled the ashy earth.

Beavers commonly follow water routes, but in
times of emergency or in moments of audacity
they will journey overland. To have followed
this stream down to its first tributary, then up
this to where the coloay in which they found
refuge was situated, would have required four
miles of travel. Overland it was less than a mile.
After following the stream for some distance, at
just the right place they turned oflF, left the
stream, and dared the overland dangers. How
did they know the situation of the colony in the
willows, or that it had escaped fire, and how
could they have known the shortest, best wav
to it ? ^

The morning after the arrival of the refugees,
work was begun on two new houses and a dam'
which was about sixty feet in length and built
across a grassy open. Green cuttings of willow
aspen, and alder were used in its construction!

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Not a single stone or handful of mud was used.
When completed it appeared like a windrow of
freshly raked shrubs. It was almost straight, but
sagged a trifle downstream. Though the water
filtered freely through, it flooded the flat above.
As the two new houses could not shelter all the
refugees, it is probable that some of them were
sheltered in bank tunnels, while room for others
may have been found in the old houses.

That winter the colony was raided by some
trappers ; more than one hundred pelts were se-
cured, and the colony was left in ruins and almost
depopulated. ,

The Moraine Colony site was deserted for a
long time. Eight years after the Are I returned
to examine it. The willow growth about the
ruins was almost as thrifty as when the fire came.
A growth of aspen taller than one's head clung to
the old shore-lines, while a close seedling growth
of lodge-pole pine throve in the ashes of the old
forest. One low mound, merry with blooming
columbine, was the only house ruin to be seen.

The ponds were empty and every dam was
broken. The stream, in rushing unobstructed

164

t9t (Btttneb Coton^

through the ruins, had eroded deeply. This ero-
sion revealed the records of ages, and showed
that the old main dam had been built on the top
of an older dam and a sediment-filled pond. The
second dam was on top of an older one still. In
the sedimentof the oldest-the bottom pond-
Hound a spearhead, two charred logs, and the
skull of a buffalo. Colonies of beaver, as well as
those of men. are often fc:md upon sites that

have a tragic history. Beavers, with Omar, might
say,— *

"When you and I behind the veil are past,
Oh but the long long while the world shall last."

The next summer, 1893, the Moraine site was
resettled. During the first season the colonists
spent their time repairing dams and were con-
tent to live in holes. In autumn theygathered no
harvest, and no trace of them could be found
after the snow; so it is likely that they had re-
turned to winter in the colony whence they had
come. But early in the next spring there were
remforced numbers of them at work establishing
a permanent settlement. Three dams were re-
paired, and in the autumn many of the golden

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leaver that fell found lodgment in the fresh plastc
of two new houses.

In the new Moraine Colony one of the house

was torn to pieces by some animal, probably

bear. This was before Thanksgiving. About mi<

winter a prospector left his tunnel a few mik

away, came to the colony and dynamited a hous

and "got seven of them." Next year two hous<

were built on the ruins of the two just fallei

That year's harvest-home was broken by dead!

attacks of enemies. In gathering the harvest tl

beavers showed a preference for some aspens th;

were growing in a mfoist place about one hundn

feet from the water. Whether it was the size

these or their peculiar flavor that determint

their election in preference to nearer ones, I cou

not determine. One day, while several beave

were cutting here, they were surprised by a mou

tain lion which leaped upon and killed one of tl

harvesters. The next day the lion surprised ai

killed another. Two or three days later a coyc

killed one on the same blood-stained spot, ai

then overtook and killed two others as they fl

for the water. I could not see these deadly attac

i66

t9t (Buint^ Coton^

from the boulder-pile. but in each case the sight
of flying beavers sent me rushing upon the scene,
where I beheld the cause of their desperate retreat.
But despite dangers they persisted until the last
of these aspens was harvested. During the winter
the bark was eaten from these,and the next season
their clean wood was used in the walls of a new
house.

One autumn I had the pleasure of seeing some
immigrants pass me en route for a new home in
the Moraine Colony. Of course they may have
been only visitors, or have come temporarily to
«sist m the harvesting; but I like to think of
them.as immigrants, and a number of things testi-
fied that immigrants they were. One evening I
had been lying on a boulder by the stream below
the colony, waiting for a gift from the gods. It
came. Out of the water within ten feet of me
scrambled the most patriarchal, as well as the
largest, beaver that I have ever seen. I wanted
to take off my hat to him. I wanted to ask him to
tell me the story of his life, but from long habit
I simply lay still and watched and thought in
silence. He was making a portage round a cas-

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cade. As he scrambled up over the rocks, I noticed
that he had but two fingers on his right hand.
He was followed, in single file, by four others ;
one of these was minus a finger on the left hand.
The next morning I read that five immigrants
had arrived in the Moraine Colony. They had
registered their footprints in the muddy margin
of the lower pond. Had an agent been sent to
invite these colonists, or had they come out of
their own adventurous spirit? The day following
their arrival I trailed them backward in the hope
of learning whence they came and why they had
moved. They had traveled in the water most of
the time; but in places they had come out on the
bank to go round a waterfall or to avoid an
obstruction. Here and there I saw their tracks in
the mud and traced them to a beaver settlement
in which the houses and dams had been recently
wrecked. A near-by rancher told me that he had
been " making it hot " for all beavers in his meadow.
During the next two years I occasionally saw this
patriarchal beaver or his tracks thereabout.

It is the custom among old male beavers to
idle away two or three months of each summer

1 68

THE M )RAINE HOUSE BEFORE AND AFTER ENLARGEMENT

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in exploring tl e neighboring brooks and streams
but they never fail to return in time for autumn
activities. It thus becomes plain how. when an
old colony needs to move, some one in it knows
where to go and the route to follow.

The Moraine colonists gathered an unusually
large harvest during the autumu of 1909. Seven

hundredandthirty-twosaplingaspensandseveral
hundred willows were massed in the main pond
by the largest house. This pile, which was mostly
below the water-line. was three feet deep and one
hundred and twenty-four feet in circumference.
Would a new house be built this fall? This un-
usually large harvest plainly told that either child-
ren or immigrants had increased the population
of the colony. Of course, a hard winter may also
nave been expected.

No; they were not to build a new house, but
the old house by the harvest pile was to be en-
larged. One day. just as the evening shadow of
Long's Peak had covered the pond, I peeped over
a log on top of the dam to watch the work. The
house was only forty feet distant. Not a rip-
pie stirred among the inverted peaks and pines

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in the clear, shadow^nameled pond. A lon<
beaver rose quietly in the scene from the watei
near the house. Swimming noiselessly, he mad<
a circuit of the pond. Then for a time, and with
out any apparent purpose, he swam back anc
forth over a short, straight course; he movec
leisurely, and occasionally made a shallow, quie
dive. He did not appear to be watching anything
in particular or to have anything special on his
mind. Yet his eyes may have been scouting foi
enemies and his mind may have been full of hous4
plans. Finally he dived deeply, and the next 1
saw of him he was climbing up the side of th(
house addition with a pawful of mud.

By this time a number of beavers were swim
ming in the pond after the manner of the firs
one. Presently all began to work. The additioi
already stood more than two feet above the watei
line. The top of this was crescent-shaped an(
was about seven feet long and half as wide. I
was made mostly of mud, which was plentifull;
reinforced with willow cuttings and aspen sticks
For a time all the workers busied themselves ii
carrying mud and roots from the bottom of thi

170

t9t (Fttineb Cofonp

pond and placing these on the tlowly risir.g ad-
dition. Eleven were working at one time. By and
by three swam ashore, each in a different direc-
tion and each a few seconds apart. After a min-
ute or two they returned from the shore, each
carrying or trailing a long willow. These were
dragged to the top of the addition, laid down, and
trampled in the mud. Meantime the mud-carriers
kept steadily at their work; again willows were
brought, but this time four beavers went, and, as
before, each was independent of the others. I
did not see how this work could go on without
someone bossing the thing, but I failed to detect
any beaver acting as overseer. While there was
general coSperation, each acted independently
most of the time and sometimes was apparently
oblivious of the others. These beavers simply
worked, slowly, silently, and steadily; and they
were still working away methodically and with
dignified deliberation when darkness hid them.

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^ OFTEN Wish that an old beaver neighbor of mine
^ would write the story of his life. Most of the
time or eighteen years his mud hut was among
the hhes of Lily Lake, Estes Park, Colorado. He
hved through many wilderness dangers, escaped
the strategy of trappers, and survived the danger^
ous changes that come in with the home-builder.
His life was long, stirring, and adventurous. If. in
the first chapter of his life-story, he could record
some of the strong, thrilling experiences which
his ancestors must have related to him. his book
would be all the better.

"Flat-top." my beaver neighbor, was a pioneer
and a colony-founder. It is probable that he was
born ma beaver house on Wind River, and it is
iikely that he spent the first six years of his life
a ong this crag and aspen bordered mountain
stream. The first time I saw him he was leading
an emigrant party out of this stream's stee,^

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walled upper course. He and his party settlei
or rather resettled, Lily Lake.

Flat-top was the name I gave him because <
his straight back. In most beaver the shouldei
swell plumply above the back line after the ou
line of the grizzly bear. Along with this peculia
ity, which enabled me to be certain of his preseno
was another. This was his habit of gnawing tree
off close to the earth when he felled them. Th
finding of an occasional low-cut stump assure
me of his presence during the periods I failed t
s^e him.

The first beaver settlement in the lake appeal
to have been made in the early seventies, Ion
before Flat-top was born, by a pair of beaver wh
were full of the pioneer spirit. These settlers Z[
parently were the sole survivors of a large part
of emigrants who tried to climb the rugge
mountains to the lake, having been driven fror
their homes by encroaching human settlers. Al
ter a long, tedious journey, full of hardships an(
dangers, they climbed into the lake that was t
them, for years, a real promised land.

Driven from Willow Creek, they set off up

176

stream in search of a new home, probably without
knowing of Lily Lake, which was five miles dis-
tant and two thousand feet up a steep, rocky
mountam. These pilgrims had traveled only a
ittle way upstream when they found themselves
the greater portion of the time out of water This
was only a brook at its best and in most places it
was such a shallow, tiny streamlet that in it they
could not dive beyond the reach of enemies or
even completely cool themselves. In stretches
the water spread thinly over a grassy flat or a
smooth granite slope; again it was lost in the
gravel; or. murmuring faintly, pursued its way
out of sjght beneath piles of boulder. _ marbles
shaped by the Ice King. Much of the time they
were compelled to travel upon land exposed to
their enemies. Water-holes in which they rould
escape and rest were long distances apart.

This plodding, perilous five-mile journey which
the beaver made up the mountain to the lake
would be easy and care-free for an animal with
the physical make-up of a bear or a wolf, but
with the beaver it is not surprising that only two
of the emigrants survived this supreme trial and

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escaped the numerous dangers of the pilgrim
age.

Lily Lake is a shallow, rounded lily gardei
that reposes in a glacier meadow at an altitude
of nine thousand feet ; its golden pond-lilies of tei
dance among reflected snowy peaks, while ovei
it the granite crags of Lily Mountain rise severa
hundred feet. A few low, sedgy, grassy acre!
border half the shore, while along the remainde:
are crags, aspen groves, willow-clumps, and scat
tercci pines. Its waters come from springs in it!
western margin and overflow across a low grass]
bar on its curving eastern shore.

It was autumn when these beaver pioneer!
came to Lily Lake's primitive and poetic border
The large green leaves of the pond-lily reste<
upon the water, while from the long green stems
had fallen the sculptured petals of gold ; the wil
lows were wearing leaves of brown and bronze
and the yellow tremulous robes of the aspeni
glowed in the golden sunlight.

These fur-clad pioneers made a dugout — a hol<
in the bank — and busily gathered winter foo(
until stopped by frost and snow ; then, almos

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Q@»M)9flr {piontete

The next summer a house was built in the lily
pads near Ae shore. Here a number of children

wwed. These times came to an end one bright
n..dsummer day. Lord Dunraven had a difch

hon of drainrng „ that his fish ponds, several
m les elow in his Estes Park game-preserve,
m.ght have water. A drouth had prevailed fo

had or the fish ponds would go dry. The water

poured forth through the ditch, and the days of

the colony appeared to be numbered
A beaver must have water for safety and for

*eease rf movementof himself and his supplies.

He .s skillful ,n maintaining a dam and in reg-
ulating the water-supply; these two things re-
qu.e much of his time. In Lily Lake the dam .
t^lIS\ ''"'"*'°" ^'^ '^" so nicely con-

had had nothmg to do. However, they still knew

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how to build dams, and water-control had not be
come a lost art. The morning after the comple
tion of the draina :e ditch, a man was sent up tc
the lake to find out why the water was not com
ing down. A short time after the ditch-diggers
had departed, the lowering water had aroused th(
beaver, who had promptly placed a dam in th(
mouth of the ditch. The man removed this dair
and went down to report. The beaver speedily re
placed it. Thrice did the man return and destroy
their dam, but thrice did the beaver promptly
restore it.

The dam-material used in obstructing the ditcl
consisted chiefly of the peeled sticks from whicl
the beaver had eaten the bark in winter ; alonj
with these were mud and grass. The fourtl
time that the ditch guard returned, he threv
away all the material in the dam and then se
some steel traps in the water by the mouth of th<
ditch. The first two beaver who came to reblock
ade the ditch were caught in these traps an(
drowned while struggling to free themselves
Other beaver heroically continued the work tha
these had begun. The cutting down of sapling

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and the procuring of new material made their
*»rk ,Iow. ve.y .low. in the face of the .JZ
««cap.ng water; when the ditch waa,tla»t ob^
.truc.ed.a part of the material whichfo™^ ,ht
»ew dam consisted of the trap, and the de^
bodjcof the two beaverwhohad b«velyperi,he1
while tiymg to save the colony.

The ditch guard returned with a rifle and
came to stay. The first leaver to come witl
«nge wa. shot The guard again amoved Z
dam, made a fire al»ut twenty feet from the ditch.

m hand. Toward morning he became drowsy
^t down by the fire, heard the air in the"^'

Ln'f^ •,'"'"'"' *«^'"-''" water.'and
finally fell asleep. While he thus slept, witk his
nfle across h,s lap. the beaver placed another-
theu. ,ast-obstructio„ before the outrushing

On a^kening, the sleeper tore out the dam
and stood guard over the ditch. AH that after-
noon a number of beaver hovered about, watch-
mg for an opportunity to stop the water again
The.r opportunity never came, and three who

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ventured too near the rifleman gave up thei
lives,— reddening the clear water with their life

blood in vain.

The lake was drained, and the colonists abar
doned their homes. One night, a few days afte
the final attempt to blockade the ditch, an unwil
ing beaver emigrant party climbed silently oi
of the uncovered entrance of their house an
made their way quietly, slowly, beneath the star
across the mountain, descending thence to Wir
River, where they founded a new colony.

Winter came to the old lake-bed, and the U
roots froze and died. The beaver houses rapid
crumbled, and for a few years the picturesqi
ruins of the beaver settlement, like many a s<
tlement abandoned by man, stood pathetical
in the midst of wilderness desolation. Slowly i
water rose to its old level in the lake, as the oi
let ditch gradually filled with swelling turf a
drifting sticks and trash. Then the lilies cai
back with rafts of greeu and boats of gold
enliven this lakele' of repose.

One autumn morning, while re! arning to i
cabin after a night near the stars on Lily Moi

182

^tar^tt (pioneers

tam, I paused on a crag to watch the changing
morning light down Wind River Canon. While
thus engaged. Flat-top and a party of colonists
came along a game trail within a few yards of
me, evidently bound for the lake, which was only
a short distance away. I silently followed them.
This was my introduction to Flattop.

On the shore these seven adventurers paused
for a moment to behold the scene, or, possiblv, to
dream of empire ; then they waddled out into' the
water and made a circuit of the lake. Probably
Flat-top had been here before as an explorer.
Withm two hours after their arrival these colon-
ists benran building for a permanent settlement.

It was late to begin winter preparation. The
clean, white aspens had shed their golden leaves
and stood waiting to welcome the snows. This
lateness may account for the makeshift of a hut
which the colonists constructed. This was built
against the bank with only one edge in the water ;
the entrance to it was a twelve-foot tunnel that
ended in the lake-bottom where the water was
two feet deep.

The beaver were collecting green aspen and

183

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willow cuttings in the water by the tunnel-entrance
when the lake froze over. Fortunately for the
colonists, with their scanty supply of food, the
winter was a short one, and by the first of April
they were able to dig the roots of water plants
along the shallow shore where the ice had melted.
One settler succumbed during the winter, but
by summer the others had commenced work on
a permanent house, which was completed before
harvest time.

I had a few glimpses of the harvest-gathering
and occasionally saw Flat-top. One evening, while
watching the harvesters, I saw three new workers.
Three emigrants — from somewhere — had joined
the colonists. A total of fifteen, five of whom
were youngsters, went into winter quarters, — a
large, comfortable house, a goodly supply of food,
and a location off the track of trappers. The cold,
white days promised only peace. But an unpre-
ventable catastrophe came before the winter was
half over.

One night a high wind began to bombard the
ice-bound lake with heavy blasts. The force of
these intermittent gales suggested that the wind

184

Qgfeaijet (pioneers

was trying to dislodge the entire ice covering of
the lake; and indeed that very nearly happened.
Before the cnsis came. I went to the lake, believ-
ing It to be the best place to witness the full effects
of this most enthusiastic wind. Across the ice
the gale boomed, roaring in the restraining forest
beyond These broken rushes set the ice vibrat-
ing and the water rolling and swelling beneath.
Dunng one of these blasts the swelling water
burst the ice explosively upward in a fractured
ridge entirely across the lake. In the next few
minutes the entire surface broke up. and the wind
began to drive the cakes upon the windward
shore.

A large flatboat cake was swept against the
beaver house, sheared it off on the water-line,
and overturned the conelike top into the lake.
The beaver took refuge in the tunnel which mn
beneath the lake-bottom. This proved a death-
trap, for Its shore end above the water-line was
clogged with ice. As the lake had swelled and
surged beneath the beating of the wind, the water
hadgushed out and streamed back into the tunnel
again and again, until ice formed in and closed

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the outer entrance. Against this ice four beaver
were smothered or drowned. I surmised the
tragedy but was helpless to prevent it. Mean-
while the others doubled back and took refuge
upon the ruined stump of their home. From a
clump of near>by pines I watched this wild drama.

Less than half an hour after the house was
wrecked, these indomitable animals began to re-
build it Lashed by icy waves, beaten by the
wind, half-coated with ice, these home-loving
people strove to rebuild their home. Mud was
brought from the bottom of the pond and piled
upon the shattered foundation. This mud set —
froze — almost instantly on being placed. They
worked desperately, and from time to time I caught
sight of Flat-top. Toward evening it appeared
possible that the house might be restored, but,
just as darkness was falling, a roaring gust struck
the lake and a great swell threw the new part
into the water.

The colonists gave up the hopeless task and
that night fled down the mountain. Two were
killed before they had gone a quarter of a mile.
Along the trail were three other red smears upon

i86

(StarJet fpiwutts

the crusted snow; each told of a death and a
feast upon the wintry mountain-side among the
solemn pines. Flat-top with five others finally
gained the Wind River Colony, from which he
iiad led his emigrants two years before

One day the following June, while examining
the lilies m the lake. I came upon a low, freshly
cut stump; -Flat-top had returned. A number
of colonists were with him and all had come to
stay.

All sizable aspen that were within a few yards
of the water had been cut away, but at the south-
west corner of the lake, about sixty feet from the
shore, was an aspen thicket. Flat-top and his
fellow workers cut a canal from the lake through
alow.sedgyflatinto this aspen thicket. Thecanal
was straight, about fourteen inches deep and
twenty-six inches wide. Its walls were smoothly
cut and most of the excavated material was piled
evenly on one side of the canal and about eight
inches from it. It har* , ^ angular, mechaaical ap.
pearance, and suggested the work not of a beaver
but of man. and that of a very careful man too. '
Down this canal the colonists floated the tim-

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bers used in building their two houses. On the
completion of the houses, the home-builders re-
turned to the grove and procured winter supplies.
In most cases the small aspen were floated to the
pile between the houses with an adept skill, with-
out severing the trunk or cutting ofif a single
limb.

The colonists had a few years of ideal beaver
life. One summer I came upon Flat-top and a
few other beaver by the brook that drains the
lake, and at a point about half a mile below its
outlet. It was along this brook that Flat-top's
intrepid ancestors had painfully climbed to estab-
lish the first settlement in the lake. Commonly
each summer several beaver descended the moun-
tain and spent a few weeks of vacation along
Wind River. Invariably they returned before the
end of August; and autumn harvest-gathering
usually began shortly after their return.

Year after year the regularly equipped trappers
passed the lake without stopping. The houses
did not show distinctly from the trail, and the
trappers did not know that there were beaver in
this place. But this peaceful, populous lake was

i88

not forever to remain immune from the wiles of
"•an, and one day it was planted with that bar-
banc, cruel torture-machine. the steel trap
..1' m"^ consumptive, who had returned
temporanly to nature, was boarding at a ranch
house several miles away. While out riding he
discovered the colony and at once resolv^ to
depopulate .t The beaver ignored his array of
traps until he enlisted the services of an old
trapper, whose skill sent most of the beaver to
their death before the sepia-colored catkins ap.
Peared upon the aspens. Rat-top escaped.

The ruinous raid of the traj •, was followed
by a do, season, and du.:.,g the outb a rancher
down the mountain came up prospecting for
water. He cut a ditch in the outlet ridge of the
ake. »d out gushed the water. He starfed home
ma cheerful mood, but long before he arrived,
the fi«teng,neers"hadblockedhisditch. Dur-
2 the next few days and nights the rancher
■n^e many tnps from his house to the lake
and when he was not in the ditch, swearing, and'

tr,!!;L ^""^ "*" " '' ^'"'"'"S °«

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From time to time I dropped around to see
the struggle, one day coming upon the scene
while the beaver were completing a blockade.
For a time the beaver hesitated ; then they partly
resumed operations and carried material to the
spot, but without showing themselves entirely
above water. When it appeared that they must
have enough to complete the blockade, I advanced
a trifle nearer so as to have a good view while
they placed the accumulated material. For a time
not a beaver showed himself. By and by an aged
one climbed out of the water, pretending not
to notice me, and deliberately piled things right
and left until he had completed the ditch-dam-
ming to his satisfaction. This act was audacious
and truly heroic. The hero was Flat-top.

In this contest with the rancher, the beaver
persisted and worked so effectively that they at
last won and saved their homes, in the face of what
appeared to be an unconquerable opposition.

A little while after this incident, a home-seeker
came along, and, liking the place, built a cabin in
a clump of pines close to the southern shore.
Though he was a gray old man without a family,

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M upon h.„ ^.h a lack o£ neighborly

J'n^K°''u' "'"' ''''■ "'' ' had failed to
call upon h.m. but one day while passing I heaM

^m order a trapper oiT the place. This order^

accompanied by so strong a declaration of p^

«ples- together with a humane plea for the Hfc

Iake.sho«7°°" '■" ' "'"* *'^'=^'' ='-« 'o 'he
Wee shore I came upon two gray wolves, both

wh le h"a^'"r''' "'"^'' "^ -* *eir death
wh.le harvesting aspens for winter. The follow-

ng spnng 1 had a more delightful glimpse Tf
I.fe m the ^-Ids. Within fifty feet of the ^l

iTeefr" M"^' "'"* '"""P *at rose a^u.

^ai ir /r""'- '^'"'■'•'8 ««" I should
escape notice if I sat still on the top. I climbed

up. Though It was mid-forenoon. the beaver
-me out of the lake and wandered about nl

ear y spring. They did not detect me. They ac-
tually appeared to enjoy themselves. This is the

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only time that I ever saw a beaver fully at ease
and apparently happy on land. In the midst of
their pleasures, a flock of mountain sheep came
along and mingled with them. The beaver paused
and stared; now and thtn a sheep would mo-
mentarily stare at a beaver, or sniff the air as
though he did not quite like beaver odor. In less
than a minute the flock moved on, but just as
they started, a beaver passed in front of the lead
ram, who made a playful pretense of a butt at
him; to this the beaver paid not the slightest
heed.

During the homesteader's second summer he
concluded to raise the outlet ridge, deepen the
water, and make a fish pond of the lake. Being
poor, he worked alone with wheelbarrow and
shovel. The beaver evidently watched the pro-
gress of the work, and each morning their fresh
footprints showed in the newly piled earth.
Shortly before the dam was completed, the home-
steader was called away for a few days, and on
his return he was astonished to find that the
beaver had completed his dam ! The part made
by the beaver suited him as to height and length,

192

(gtAUtt ipmtttt

~ he covered it over with e«th «d allowed it to
remain. H.s work in turn was inspected and an-
parently approved by the beaver
How long does a beaver live? Trapper, say

RaTt T '" ."'' ^^='"- ' "»<' glimpses Z
Rat-top through eighteen years, and he must

have been not less than four years of age when I

fi«t met h,m. This would make his a|e twenty-

two yea«; but he may have been six years of

age-he looked it-the morning he first led

ermg^nts ,nto Lily Lake; and he may have

.ved a few years alver I saw him last. But only

the chosen few among the beaver can succeed in

Imng as long as Flat-top. The last time I saw

h.m was the day he dared me and blockaded the

dr^n djtch and stopped the outrushing water.

Hat-top has vanished, and the kind old home-

lake shll remams. and still there stands a beaver
house among the pond-lilies.

td* Cot<m2 in 'Ohnitt

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n** the Medicine Bow Mountain, one December

^»y' ' came upon a beaver house that was

.urrounded by a pack of wolves. These beasts

were trying to break into the house. Apparently
an early .^^^^^ ,„^^ ^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^y

and thus prevented its walls from freezing. The
soft condition of the walls, along with the ex-
treme hunger of the wolves, led to this assault.
Two of these animals were near the top of the
house clawing away at a rapid rate. Now and
then one of the sticks or poles in the house-wall
was encountered, and at this the wolf would bite
and tear furiously. Occasionally one of the wolves
caught a resisting stick in his teeth, and. leaning
back shook his head, endeavoring with all his
might to tear it out. A number of wolves lay
about expectant; a few sat up eagerly on
haunches while others moved about snarling,
dnvmg the others off a few yards, to be in turn
driven off themselves. Shortly before they dis-

197

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covered me, there was a fierce fight on top of the
house, in which several mixed.

Even though they had broken into the house,
it would have availed them nothing, for in this,
as in all old colonies, there were safety tunnels
from the house which extended beneath the pond
to points on shore. In these tunnels the beaver
find safety, if by any means the house is ruined.
Although carnivorous animals are fond of beaver
flesh, they rarely take the useless trouble of dig-
ging into a house. Occasionally a wolverine or a
bear may dig into a thin-walled house or one not
frozen, then, after breaking in, lie in wait, and
endeavor to make a capture while the beaver are
repairing the hole. Beaver are more secure from
enemies during the winter than at any other
time. It is while felling a tree far from the water
or while following a shallow stream that most
beaver are captured by their enemies.

Many a time in winter I have made a pleasant
visit to a beaver colony. One day, a few hours
after a heavy snowfall, I came out of a dark forest
and stood for a time on the edge of the snow-
covered pond. Around were the firs and spruces

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of the forest, moveless as statues and each a
pointed cone of snow. Around the small snowy
plain of the pond, the drooping snow-entangled
willows held their heads together in contented
and thoughtful silence. Everything was serene.

A clean fox track led from the woods in a
straight line across the snowy surface of the
pond to the house, which stood near the centre
of this smooth white opening. The tracks en-
circled the house and ascended to the top of it,
where the record imprinted in the snow told that
here he watchfully rested. Descending, he had
snififed at the bushy tips of the winter food-pile
that thrust up through the ice, then crossed the
dam to plunge into the snowy tangle of willows.
Water was still pouring and gurgling down a
steepbeaver slide. This wasice-and-snow-covered
except at two points where the swift splashing
water dashed intermittently from a deep icy vent.
While I was examining the beauty of the upl
building icy buttresses by one of the vents, a waters
ouzel came forth and alighted almost within reach
I stood still. After giving a few of his nodding
bows, he reentered the vent. Presently he emerged

199

»^*» r*^.

3n Qgfea))er lOD^ttb

from the lower vent and, alighting upon an ice-
coated boulder, indi£ferent to the gray sky from
which scattered flakes were slowly falling and de-
spite a temperature of five below zero, he sang
low and sweetly for several seconds.

Beaver do not surrender themselves to the con-
fines of a house and pond until cold solidly
covers the pond with a roof of ice. The time of
this is commonly about the first of December,
but the date is of course, in a measure, depend-
ent upon latitude, altitude, and the peculiar
weather conditions of each year. Most beaver
return to the old colony, or start a new one by
the *.rst of September. They have had a merry
rambling summer and energetically take hold to
have the house and dam ready and a harvest
stored by the time winter begins.

But they are not always ready. Enemies may
harass them, low water delay them, or an un-
usually early winter or even a heavy snow may
so hamper them that, despite greatest effort, the
ice puts a time lock upon the pond and closes them
in for the winter without sufficient supplies.

Early one October an early snowfall worked

200

t^t (Cofonp in TiHnitt

hardship in several colonies near my home. For-
tunately ^he ponds were not deeply frozen, and
those colonies which had aspen groves close to
the water succeeded in felling and dragging in
sufficient food-supplies for the winter. As snow
dnfted mto the groves, many of the trees har-
vested were cut from the tops of snowdrifts, and
thus left high stumps. The following summer a
number of these stood four feet above the earth
and presented a striking appearance alongside the
sixteen-inch stumps of normal height.

One of these storm-caught colonies fared badly.
The inhabitants were obliged to go a long dis-
tance from the water for tiees. and their all too
scanty harvest was gathered with some loss of
life. Apparently both wolves and lions discovered
the unfortunate predicament of the harvesters,
and lay m wait to catch them as they floundered
slowly through the snow. The following winter
these colonists tunneled through the bottom-
perhaps the least frozen part of the dam - and
came forth for food long before the break-up of
the ice. The water drained from the pond, and
after the ice had melted, the bottom of the pond

5 »■■

20I

5n (|(ea))ev lODottb

revealed a torn-up condition as though the starv-
ing winter inmates had dug out for food every
root and rootstock to be fcund in the bottom.

While visiting ponds at the beginning of win-
ter, I have many times noticed that, shortly after
the pond was solidly frozen over, a hole was made
through the dam just below the water-surface of
the pond. This lowered the water-level two inches
or more. Did this slight lowering of the water
have to do with the ventilation of the ice-covered
pond, or was it to put a check on deep freezing,
or for both purposes ?

In the majority of cases these holes were made
from ponds which, during the winter, received
but a meagre inflow of fresh water. Naturally,
ponds receiving a strong inflow of water would
be better ventilated, and would freeze less swiftly
and deeply than those whose waters became
stagnant This drawing-o£F of water after a few
inches of ice had formed, would, in some places,
despite the settling of the ice, form an air blanket
that would delay freezing, and thus possibly pre-
vent the ice from forming so thickly. The air
admitted by drawing o£F the water would be in-

202

t^ <Cofonj» in TWnf«

closed beneath the ice. and might thus be helpful
to the beaver inclosed in house and pond In

wh.ch had subway tunnels. -tunnels which run
from alongs.de the house through the bottom of
he i^nd toa point above water-level on the shore.
In a few instances the beaver, I do not know how
many, came out of this hole, cut and ate a few
twigs, and then returned and closed it Twice this
was used as a way out by beaver who emerged
and went to other colonies. In one case the
beaver entered the other pond by making a hole
ftrough the dam In the other they entfred the
pond through a subway tunnel. While these holes
which lower the pond-level may have chiefly h,
do w.th ventilation, or may be for the purpose of
putting a check on freezing, my evidence is not
ample enough for flnal conclusions.

thi^'T*""" °' -'°'* ~»«»«"'«nt for about .
third of the year for an animal that breathes air
and u=«s pure water, is simply one of thestrange
ways that work out with nature. While winter
lasts, a beaver must spend his time either in the
dark. lU-ventilated house or in the water of the

3n (Sfea))et tO^tb

pond. Apparently he does much sleeping and
possibly has a dull time of it. No news, no vis-
itors, and apparently nothing to do! Still a
beaver has food, and when dangers surround the
wild folk outside the pond's roof of glass, he
would be considered a good risk for life insurance.

Although the pond is commonly covered with
snow, or the ice curtained with air bubbles, there
have been numerous times during which I have
had clear views into the water, and could see and
enjoy all that was going on within, as completely
as though looking at fish or turtles through the
glass walls of an aquarium. Often I have peered
through the ice which covered the most used
place of a winter beaver pond, — the area be-
tween the house-entrance and the food-pile. The
thinness of the ice over this place was main-
tained by spring-water which came up through
the bottom, and the beaver had so arranged their
affairs that they made the best use of this shal-
low-freezing water. Of course most ponds are
without springs.

Many a time I have seen a beaver come out of
the doorway of his house and go swimming to-

204

t9t Cofon; in liHnitt

*»rf the food-pile with hU hand, against hi.

^rt enough, he set to woric and gnawed it off.
T*e piece ^ured was taken into the doorway
either .n h» hand, or in hi, teeth. Afterwarf a

^TT "^ ""•• ' "•PPOK-came out
... *« ''<»™»y. and cast the clean bone of the
sfck fro„ „hich the bark had been eaten, into
the bottom of the pond.

When there b nothing else to do. the beaver
appwntly come, into the pond a few times each
dvfor a swm. I„ the midst of swimming he
r«. at times to the undersurface of the ice and,
w.th his nose against it. exhale, a quantity of air.
After remaimng with nose at this point a few
seconds, the action of the air bubble, indicate,
that he I. mhaling the puri6ed air

aul^^uH^ °' *' """''"y '"•otnetime,
dug from the bottom of thepond. At other time,
the b«ver eat, the stalks of plants that grow in

he^ •^K**' °"* ''"°'' "o^errootsaround
t^^ Tl"- N-»'-»of'«'utf,e,„entIy
lie m the water clo« to the doorway of a beaver
house or around thefood-pile. Possibly the beaver

205

<

3n ^tar^tt 1t?or(b

dispense tidbits of food that are liked by the
trout. Occasionally grubs fall from the holes in
wood from which beaver have eaten the bark.
While beaver are digging in the bottom of the
pond they doubtless unearth food-scraps that
are welcome to trout, for these often hover in
numbers on the outskirts of the muddy water
which beaver roil while digging.

Although it appears that beaver have dull
winters with but little to do but eat, sleep, and
swim, it is probable that some of their time is
spent at work. A part of their tunneling and
pond-bottom canal-digging is done in winter. I
have known of their extending canals in the bot-
tom of the pond and making submarine tunnels
while the pond was ice-covered.

There are times when the dam has sprung a
leak and must be repaired on the inside beneath
the ice. Early thaws and spring freshets some-
times wreck a dam beyond repair, or do extens-
ive damage to the house or dam at the time when
beaver enemies are likely to be at their leanest.
The house and dam are sometimes ruined when
the streams are so low and icy that it is not safe

206

i"'ng ice -jams. Somet mes the ice.o»t.- »i
up on the dam and ra.« the wate '^T ? .

situated in places whe~ A '*" '"

Shaped to meet this tmnM. -ri. ■. .
hieher an,! A trouble. The house s built

S ^1, r" ''"'™"'y ■■» '««« the usual
beaver to the housed;*- ^ "'"''"»'' ""^^

~™fort and fargteater safety thaXn. 5.,:'*
1 he winds may blow anH m;« j- ""gnoors.

«n>bs may enCtrotSTurr
bujy the forage of biM and deer and maler
movement of beasts of prey slow aLd diffic^t the

I

3n ^M^tt "ttfottb

cold may freeze and freeze and ttrcw the wilds
with lean and frozen forms; but the beaver be-
neath ice and snow shelter serenely spends the
days with comfort and safety.

The winter, with its days long or short, never
comes to an end, however, quite early enough to
suit the beaver. They emerge from the pond at
the earliest moment that frozen conditions will
allow. If their subway is choked with ice, and
food becomes exhausted, they will sometimes bore
holes through the base of the dam.

Apparently, too, holes of this kind are bored
through, or a section cut through the dam to the
bottom, for the purpose of completely draining
the pond. As this appears to be most often done
with ponds that are full of stagnant water, or
water almost stagnant, this draiulujj may be a
part of the beaver's sanitary work, — done for the
purpose of getting filth and stale water out and
also that the sour bottom may be sterilized by
sun and wind.

Conditions determine the length of time before
the dam is repaired and the pond refilled. In some
cases this is done after the lapse of a few weeks

208

t Je Colony in TiHnitt

and in others not until autumn. Pondt that have
large pure streams running through them do not
need this emptying, but occasionally they acc'-
dentally have it. Most beavercolonies are dese. icd
in summer, and fall thus into temporary decline
By late summer or early autumn the ucavt -
have assembled at the place where the ^virft; is
to be spent. There are patriarchs, yon gster.
and those in the prime of life. Around the old
home are many who set forth from it wnen the
violets were blooming, when the grass was at it.
greenest, and when mated birds were building
During the summer a few perished, while others
cast their lot with other established colonies A
few of the younger make a start for themselves
m new scenes.-found a new colony. Again the
dam IS repaired and the house recovered; again
the harvest home, and again a primitive home-
building family are housed in a hut that willing
hands have fashioned. Again the pond freezes
and again the snowfalls upon a home that stands
in a valley where countless generations of beaver
have lived through ice-bound winters and the
ever-changing happy seasons.

'I

I
i I

I

tl^t Otismt Contftt}><di<misi

'^

tionuft

^o "work like a beaver" is an aI«ost uni-

^ versal expression for energetic and intelli

gent pe^istence. but who realize the mag^^ "

of the beaver-sworks? What hehas accomplished
.s not only monumental but useful to man He

was the original Conservationist An inTe'tin^
»d valuable book couM be writtfn ot" n n5
the earth as influenced and benefited by the ^.f
^ the beaver. The beaveris intimatel/assodated
with fte natural resources, soil, and water HU
work ,s not yet done, and along the so^L^
.nnume„ble streams he will evfr be needed to
save so,l. to regulate stream-flow. and to provide
pools for the fish. ^

ni-?'^ ^'""'' conservation work is accom-

phshed by means of the dams he constructs across

treams of flowing water and the ponds that a e

thus formed. These dams and ponds render a

2'3

Jn (£fea)»eir 10)ottb

number of services: first, they save soil; second,
they check erosion; third, they reduce flood dam-
age; fourth, they store water and help to sustain
stream-flow; fifth, they provide water-holes for
fish; and sixth, they are helpful in maintaining
deep waterways by reducing the extremes of both
high and low water, and also by reducing the
quantity of sediment carried down into river-
channels.

I had enjoyed the ways of •* our first engineers "
before it dawned upon me that their works might
be useful to man, and that the beaver through
his constructive handling of the natural resources
might justly be called a conservationist One dry
winter the stream through the Moraine Colony
ran low and froze to the bottom, and the only
trout in it that survived were those in the deep
holes of beaver ponds. These ponds offer many
advantages to fish multiplication. Much food ac-
ceptable to the fish is swept into these ponds.
Altogether a beaver pond is an excellent local
habitation for fish.

One gray day while I was examining a beaver
colony there came another demonstration of the

214

usefulness of beaver ponds. The easy rain of two
days ended in a heavy downpour— a deluge upon
the mountain-side a mile or so upstream. There
was almost nothing on this mountain either to ab-
sorb or delay the excess of water which was speed-
ily shed into the stream below. Flooding down
the stream's channel above the beaver pond, came
a roaring avalanche of water, or water-slide, with a
rubbish-filled front that was five or six feet high.
This expanded as it rolled into the pond, and
swept far out on the sides, while the water-front,
greatly lowered, rushed over the dam. A half z
dozen ponds immediately below sufficed so to
check the speed of this water and so greatly to
reduce its volume that as it poured over the last
dam of this colony it was no longer a flood.

The regulation of stream-flow is important.
There are only a few rainy days each year, and
all the water that flows to the sea through river-
channels falls during these few rainy days. The
instant the water reaches the earth it is hurried
away by gravity, and unless there are /actors to
delay this run-off, the rivers would naturally
contain water only on the rainy days and for a

215

h (0ea))er Hhtt^

little while thereafter. A beaver dam and pond
together form a factor of importance in the keep-
ing of streams ever flowing. The pond is a reser^
voir which catches and retains some of the water
coming inro it during rainy days and which
delays the water-flow through it. A beaver pond
is a leaky reservoir, a kind of spring as it were,
and if stored full during rainy days the leakage
from it will help maintain stream-flow below dui^
ing the dry weather. Beaver works thus tend to
distribute to streams a moderate quantity of water
each day. In other words they spread out or dis-
tribute the water of the few rainy days through all
the days of the year.

A river which flows steadily throughout the
year is of inestimable value to mankind. If floods
sweep a river, they do damage. If low water comes,
the wheels of steamers and of factories cease
to move, and a dry river-channel means both
damage and death. Numerous beaver colonies
along the sources of countless streams that rise
in the hills and the mountains would be helpful
in equalizing the flow of these streams. I hope
and believe that before many years every rushing

216

care-free brook that springs from a great water-
shed will be steadied in apoetic pond that is made,
and that will be maintained by our patient, per-
severing friend the beaver.

In the West beaver are peculiarly useful at
stream-sources, where their ponds store flood
waters that may later be used for stock water or
tor irrigation purposes. There ai^ a number of
localities in New Mexico. South Dakota, and
elsewhere in the West where beaver receive the
utmost protection and encouragement from
ranchers, whose herds are benefited by water con-
veniently stored in beaver ponds. A few power
companies in the country have commenced to
stock with beaver the watersheds which supply
them with water. They do this because they real-
ize that countless small ponds or reservoirs are
certain to be constructed by these little coaei-
vatioaists.

Running water dissolves and erodes away the
earthy materials with which it comes in contact
The presence of a beaver pond and dam across
a stream s highway prevents the wearing and the
carrying away of material. They not only pre-

217

3n Qgfea»et TI?otto

vent erosion or wearing away, but they take so
and sediment from the water which comes t
them and thus cause an upbuilding. Hence th
presence of beaver ponds along streams causes a
accumulation of sediment and soil. In time thes
fill rocky channels and cafions, widen and lengthe
valleys, and thus extend the productive area (
the earth.

Beaver ponds are settling-basins, and in the
are deposited the heavier matter brought in I
the stream. In time the pond is filled, and if tl
beaver do not raise the height of the dam, tl
accumulated earthy matter becomes covered wi
flowers or forests.

On the headwaters of the Arkansas River

Colorado some placer miners found gold in tl

sediment of an inhabited beaver pond. In was

ing out the deposit of the pond they broke in

an enormous amount of loose material beneat

that apparently had been piled in there by g

cial action. This material, when removed, w

found to have been resting in an ancient beav

pond that was about thirty feet below the one

the surface.

218

11

ake soil
>nies to
;nce the
mses an
ne these
engthen
area of

in them
[it in by
id if the
lam, the
red with

River in
d in the
[n wash-
oke into
beneath,
; by gla-
i^ed, was
t beaver
le one at

tit Ottjtnof CowetDof tonte<

A few centuries ago there were millions of
beaver ponds in North America; most of these
were long since filled with sediment. Since then
too, countless others have been formed and filled'
Thissoil-saving and soiUpreading still goes ever
on wherever there is a beaver pond.

Many of the richest tillable lands of New Eng-
^d were formed by the artificial works of the
beaver. There are hundreds of valleys in Kansas.
Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, and other States
whose nch surface was spread upon them by the
«:tivities of beaver through generations. In the
Southern States and in the mountains of the
West, the numbers of beaver meadows are beyond
computation. The aggregate area of rich soil-
deposits in the United States for which we are
indebted to the beaver is beyond belief, and prob.
ably amounts to millions of acres.

The beaver have thus prepared the way for
forests and meadows, orchards and grain-fields
homes and school-houses. In the golden age of
the beaver, their countless colonic, clustered all
overour land. These primeval folk then gathered
their harvest. Innumerable beaver ponds, which

219

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then shone everywhere in the sun. slowly filled
with deposited.outspreading soi].-and vanished
Elm avenues now arch where the low-growing
w, low drooped across the canal, and a populous
village stands upon the seat of a primitive and
lorgotten colony.

A live beaver is more valuable to mankind
than a dead one. As trappers in all sections of
the country occasionally catch a beaver, it is
probable that there still are straggling ones scat-
tered along streams all the way from saltwater
up to timber-line. twelve thousand feet above sea-
level. These remaining beaver maybe extermin-
ated; . ut if protected they would multiply and
colonize stream-sources. Here they would prac-
tise conservation. Their presence would reduce
river and harbor appropriations and make rivers
more manageable, useful, and attractive. It would
pay us to keep beaver colonies in the heights
Beaver would help keep America beautiful. A
beaver colony in the wilds gives a touch of ro-
mance and a rare charm to the outdoors. The
works of the beaver have ever intensely interested
the human mind. Beaver works may do for

220

tlit i:>tisimt CofiBttyxitioniei

children what schools, sermons, companions, and
even home sometimes fail to do, — develop the
power to think. No boy or girl can become inti-
mately acquainted with the ways and works of
these primitive folk without having the eyes of
observation opened, and acquiring a permanent
interest m the wide world in which we live. A
race which can produce mothers and fathers as
noble as those beaver in the Grand Canon who
offered their lives hoping thereby to save their
children is needed on this earth. The beaver is
the Abou-ben-Adhem of the wild. May his tribe
increase!

THE END

AgEAVER literature is scarce. The book which
VSf easily excels is " The American Beaver
and his Works." by Lewis H. Morgan. Samuel
Hearne has an excellent paper concerning the
beaver in " Journey from Prince of Wales Fort
to the Northern Ocean." published in 1 795. Good
accounts of the beaver are given in the following
books : « Beavers: their Ways," by Joseph Hen.y
Taylor; " Castorologia," by Horace T. Martin;
" Shaggycoat," by Clarence Hawkes ; " The House
in the Water." by Charles G. D. Roberts; and
" Forest Neighbors," by William Davenport Hul-
bert. There are also admirable papers by Ernest
Thompson Seton in his " Life-Histories of North-
ern Animals," by W. T. Hornaday in his " Amer-
ican Natural History," and by Baillie-Grohman
in " Camps in the Rockies."

3n^ex

Acddenti, 144.

A«^ '4, «93-

Air, blanket over pond, aoa, aoj.

American Fur Company, 49,

Arkansaa River, 318.

Aitor, John Jacob, 49.

Attitudes, 6.

Audubon, John James, 53,

Autumn actiritiei, beginning of, aoo.

Bad Lands, 65.

Basins, food, 108. Su aUt Wells.
Beaver, a tame, 33-35.
Beaver, aged, of the Spruce Tree Col-
ony. 83. 84, 95. 96; of lily Lake,
103-105 ; migraUng to the Motiine
Colony, 167, 168.
Bedding, 123, 133,
Bierstadt Morain^ 140.
Bobcat, 35.

Burrows, iio, iti; ■ substitute for
houws, 137, 138.

Canada, emblem of, 43.

*^*?if:,'?: '?•««• MI. 145-149.187 ;
•t Lily Lake, 103, 104; importance,
105 ; use of excavated material, 105,
106; forms of, 106, 107; system at
Three Forks, Mont, 107-1115 dug
in winter, 306.

Castoreum, 43, 44,

Chasm Lake, 143.

*^'!i!!"**'"'' "* "**'*'• 'nfluenee on. Ears, 7.

47-49.
Color, 8.

Colorado River, 35, 5a

Ccdperation, 171.

Coyotes, 33, 103, 161-163, 166.
Cry, 37.

Cutting trees, methods of, 10-13, 31,
3»; intelligence shown in, 57 gi -
operation, observed, 86, 90^6 ;ac'
adents in, 144.

D*ms materials, 65-67 j construction,

'j '.i*^' ^ '• «'''**• *9. 70 ; new
and old, 70, 71 ; discharge from, 71
7a; not aU beaver build, 73 J thor-
oughfares, 73; effect on topography,
73. 74; shape, 75-77; an interesting
nam, 76-78 ; waterproofing, 78 ; di-
mensions of a long dam, 78, 79; di-
mensions of other dams, 86; across
canals, 108-110; the dead-wood dam,
'43-«SO! across a drainage ditch,
»8o, 181 ; across an irrigation ditch,
189, 190 ; a homesteader's dam com-
pleted by beaver, 193, 193 ; effect on

, stream-flow, 313-317.

Day, working by, 33, 94, ,j6.

Death, 14.

Ditch, struggle over a, 179-183.

Ditches. Stt Canals.

Diver, the young beaver, 33-35.

Domestication, 35.

Dunraven, Lord, 179.

Enemies, ^; times of danger from.

198.

225

3nbe;p

Engineering, 139-150.

Erosion, clMclnd by bny«r, 114, 117,

ai8.
Errors, 67, 68.
Estes Park, 179.
Europe, the betrer in, 40, 41.
Exploration, 168, 169.
Eyesight, 8.

Fabulous accounts, 53.

Feet, uses of, 5, 6 ; form of, 8.

Feigning injury, 35, 36.

Felling trees. Stt Cutting tiMS.

Fence posts, 30.

Fighting, 19, ao, 34, 35.

Fire, 158-163.

Fish, water-holes for, 314.

Flat-top, a beaver jrioneer, 175, 176,

183-193.
Floods, ao6, 307 j damage prevented by

beaver, 314, 316.
Food, 10, 84, 305.

Food-pUes, 13, 13, 88, 89, 97, 150, 169.
Fouil beavo-, 40.
Fox, 199.
Fruit trees, 30.

Geographical distribution, 40-^ 49, 50.

Gold, 3i8.

Grand CaSon, 35, 59.

Hands, uses of, 5 ; form of, 8.

Harvest, a year's, 97 ; a large, 169.

Harvest-gathering, 83-98,148-150,157,
158.

Hearing, 8.

Heame, Samuel, quo' 4, 53.

History, the beaver in, 41-44.

Homesteader, a friendly, 190-193.

Houses, building, 3 ; occupants, ai ; di-
mensions, 86, 119, 130, 130, 131;
mud plastering, 97, 133-125; con-
struction, 119-133, 130, 131; en-

226

tiucet, 119, 130 ; situation, lao,
iaS-ia7; burrows a substitute for,
1J7. "8 J a typical house, 130, 131 j
ventilation, 133; enlargement, 169-
i7«; security, 197, 198; shaped to
meet floods, 307.
Hudson's Bay Company, tiie, 48.

Ice, a trouble of beaver existence, 136,
137; a catastrophe caused by, 184-
186 ; on the pond, 300, ao3-3o6 ;
casualties caused by, S07.

Indians, their legends about the beaver,
39-

Individuality, 35, 67.

Industry, 36.

Intelligence, 46, 57-60.

Irrigation-ditches, 31.

Island Colony, harvesting methods of,
9h 93-

Jefferson River, 11, 78, 107, 108.

Kingsford, William, his History of
Canada, 48.

Land, beaver seen on, 191, 19a.

Leadership, 30.

Legends, 39.

Lewis and Clark, 43.

Life, the beaver's, 14-16.

Lily Lake, beaver at, 101-105 ; beaver

house at, 119 ; the pioneer beaver of,

«rS-'93 ; description of, 178.
Lily Mountain, 183.
Lion, mountain, 160-163, 166.
Local attachment, 141, 143.
Long, Stephen Harriman, his Journal,

33-
Longfellow, Henry Wadswortii, his

Hiawatha quoted, 60, 61.
Long's Peak, 140, 153.
Love ditty, 37.

Jn^ejr

Majors, Aleundar, hit Sntnty Ytars

OH th$ Prontiir, 59, 60.
Martin, Horace T., 49.
Mating, a;.

Medicine Bow Mountain*, 197.
Migration, jo, ai, 132, 133, 141, ,5,.

163, 167-169, 175-177. >«a, 183.

Miiciiief, 30, 31.

Moraine Colony, engineering of, 139,
«4a-i5o; ditcovery and observation
•'1 ^ll-^l^ i homes destroyed by fire,
158, 159 J migrating, 161-163 ; new
site, 163, 164 ; old site resettled, 165;
later fortunes, 166-171.

Morgan, Lewis H., his Amtrican Bta-
vtrandhis Work), 54, 55, 58.

Night, working at, 33.
Northwestern Fur Company, 49.

Old, the, 34.
Outcasts, 34.
Ouiel, water, 199.

Parasites, 14.

Physical make-up, 5-9, 68.

Pipestone Creek, 11.

Place-names taken from the beaver, 4a,
43-

Play. »9, 156, 157-

Ponds, early abundance, 42; size, 65,
86; uses, 68, 69 ; chains or clusters
of, 74 ; depth, 107 ; canab in bottom,
107 ; spring-fiUed, 113, 114 ; lowering
the level under ice, aoa, 403 ; drain-
ing, ao8, 209 ; effect on stream-flow,
ai3-ai7 ; leaky reservoirs, ai6.

Population, changes in, 46, 47,

Protection, 50, 217, aao, aai.

Reason, evidences of, 57, 58.
Romanes, George J., on the beaver, 58,
59-

227

Sanitation, aoS.
Sawtooth Mountains, 66.
Sediment,-a problem of beaver life, ia5,

ia6.
Sheep, mountain, 19a.
Siae, 7.

SWm, 43i 44, 48, 49.

Sleep, laa.

Slides, 87, iia, 199.

Smell, sense of, 7.

Snake River, 35.

Soil, the beaver's conservation of, 214,

ai7-aao.
Sounds and silence, 19, ao, aj, a6, a7,

>33. «34-
Springs, use of, 204.
Spruce Tree Colony, harvest time with,

83-98 ; tunnels in, 113-115.
Stream-flow, effect of beaver on, 72-

74.ai3-*i7-
Strength, 9.

Subways. Se* Tunnels.
Swimming, method of, 6.

TaU, uses of, 5, 6, 11 ; form and cover-
ing, 8; signalling with, 24, 31, 96;
fabulous accounts of the uses of,
53-

Teeth, 7-9.

Three Forks, Montana, 42, 79; canal
system at, 107-111.

Trails, III, iia.

Transportation of dam and food ma-
terial, 86-90, 92, 93 ; canals used in,
106-115; trails and slides used in,
III, iia, 115 ; tunnels used in, na-
115.

Trappers, 164, 189-191.

Traps, 35, 189.

Trees, cutting. Stt Cutting trees.

Trimming trees, la, 96.

Trout, 205, 206.

Tunnels, 85, 112-115, '98, 203, 206.

2t^

Water. Sm Slrtam-iow.
Water-ottMl, 199.
WateMuppIjr, 85, 86.
WMthwwiMion, 44-47.
Weight, 7.
Wdb, food, 103, 104.

■int.
Whtotlt, a<^ 17.
Wll<kI^35.

5w «/w t%.

Wniow Ciwk, 17&

Wind Rlrtr, loa, 175, iSa, iff.

Winter, bisvtr lift in, 197-109.

Wol»«a, gray, 191, 197.

Wood, daad, 143, 144.

Work, aceoBBpUahad bjr htmr, 3-5.

Young, Urth and can of, 87, aS ; irowth
and play of, a8.

^-^

CAMMUOOB . MASMCHUUm
U . • . A